Though earthquakes have troubled the Bay Area, is Sacramento susceptible to feeling the same effects?
In January 2018, an magnitude 4.4 earthquake hit the San Francisco area approximately 1.9 miles from Berkeley, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The USGS website also said that people reported feeling the earthquake 40 miles south in San Jose and there were no reported structural damages or injuries.
With this occurrence, it begs the question, is Sacramento able to feel a quake and exactly how close to the fault line are we? Don Drysdale, Spokesman for the California Geological Survey, discussed the current quake and what people should be aware of.
"You wouldn't necessarily feel an earthquake of that size," said Drysdale speaking about the magnitude 4.4 quake. "Over 65 miles away, it wasn't big enough to feel here. [If it's] a magnitude 6 or so you might start feeling it even if you're 50-60 miles away."
Drysdale said that depending on the magnitude of a quake in the Bay Area, Sacramentans could feel it despite having no known fault lines in the area.
"It's certainly possible," he said. "It's possible if the earthquake is big enough."
The quake is said to be associated with the Hayward fault, which aligns underneath the eastern side of the Bay area -- from Hayward through Berkeley.
He also explained that scientists are concerned about that specific fault because it's "kind of overdue". Though the last big quake on the fault was a magnitude 7 in 1868, they are concerned about the recurrence rate which gauges how often you would expect a big earthquake to happen on a given fault.
"It's possible," he said of a bigger earthquake occuring."[But] the chances of this earthquake foreshadowing a larger event, goes down quicker over time. If there isn't a large earthquake in the next couple of the days the odds go down."
The Hayward fault is the current fault with the highest probability of an earthquake to happen, according to Drysdale. But for now and unless something major happens, people in Sacramento are generally safe.
