
The earthquake hit at approximately 12 p.m. on Thursday. Courtesy of USGS
Isla Vista experienced a 5.3 magnitude earthquake on Thursday afternoon, according to United States Geological Services (USGS).
USGS reported the earthquake occurred approximately 17.4 miles southwest of Santa Cruz Island, California at 12:29 p.m. The agency initially said the earthquake’s depth was 10.4 miles, but later updated figure to 6.2 miles.
Several individuals in I.V. and on the UC Santa Barbara campus reported feeling a “rolling sensation” or a “jerk” when the earthquake hit.
Samantha Herrera, second-year sociology major
Carrillo! Half the people acknowledged it, looking all around, and half the people didn’t seem to care much 🤷🏽♀️
— Quilla 🌙 (@SamHerrera97_) April 5, 2018
Matt Stahl, University Archivist
In the Library, Third Floor, Mountainside. Kind of a rolling sensation.
— Matt Stahl (@Stahlmatt) April 5, 2018
Kasey Calwell, third-year biology major
65 DP, items in our house shook, and it seemed to have some “jerk” to it
— Kasey Calwell (@kasey_calwell) April 5, 2018
Kiana Broussard, first-year biology major
In IV theatre, felt like I was on a boat. No one else reacted to it so I thought it was just me
— ten k (@kweenkiana) April 5, 2018
The earthquake most strongly hit Santa Cruz Island. The island was 14.9 miles from the epicenter, reaching intensity level “VI,” a level USGS uses to refer to incidents of strong shaking and light damage.
The earthquake impacted Isla Vista, Santa Barbara and Ventura at an intensity level of “IV,” indicating light shaking and no damage.
The Tsunami Warning Center reported there is no tsunami danger at this time.
The last major earthquake impacting Isla Vista was a magnitude of 3.8 and occurred on Jan. 6, about nine miles west of Isla Vista.
This geological “event” is but a harbinger to a greater crisis coming to the United States and the world in the economic sphere; with Trump doubling-down on his tariff restrictions this very same day!
Tariffs and trade wars hurt consumers. The country Trump leads has a consumer-based economy. The country Xi leads does not. Advantage Xi.
This geological “event” has had no significant aftershocks to date. There should have been several by this time. This anomaly has me quite perplexed.
Scientific data online indicates that this was a strike-slip fault activity with the two plates moving horizontally to each other; no thrust upward here. I guess the plates are locked-in pretty tight now.
Finally! @4:06 pm PST a 2.4 magnitude aftershock approximately (2) miles deeper than the original temblor. A long time coming relatively speaking…essentially benign.
SB Democrat, I highly doubt fracking activity played a role in this major quake as the plates moved horizontally this time. However, if there occurred an upward thrust fault event, the oil fracking activity occurring on the top of the anticlinal strata would certainly exacerbate the magnitude perhaps 100-fold. This very same event occurred with the Long Beach quake of 1933. My forthcoming novel, “Barbaria Unleashed,” to be published in its entirety on the Santa Barbaria website explains in fine detail the very real ongoing dynamics at play here.
Getting back to the trade wars… Watch the market tank some more. It has tumbled three months in a row which is the first time this has happened in nine years!
The CBOE Volatility Index (Vix) is still relatively elevated @20.70.
You can all see now how “boxed in” Trump is with regards to his tariff policy vis-a-vis China.
Just like the tightly constrained horizontal plates off the Santa Barbara Channel, we know that any future attempt by him to put any teeth into his rhetoric will be met with an increasing volatile downward spiral in the stock market.
I fear the same results with the Syrian war debacle now on the horizon. Notice how the market has pulled back more than 300 points today. This war could very well escalate.
According to the scedc.caltech.edu/recent/ website, there occurred a third aftershock on Tuesday, April 10th @0:04 am PDT. It registered 2.7 local magnitude and the rupture was centered at 8.9 miles deep. According to the First Motion Focal Mechanism and accompanying beach-ball schematic, this now appears to be an oblique upward thrust fault dynamic now occurring at this depth. A fascinating display of tectonic interplay!