Sunday’s magnitude 4.1 earthquake near Malibu is part of a larger seismic pattern being seen in Southern California.
The region has been experiencing a number of moderate earthquakes since 2024. In all of 2024, Southern California experienced 15 seismic sequences with at least one magnitude-4 or higher earthquake, according to a count by seismologist Lucy Jones, a Caltech research associate. That’s the highest annual total in the last 65 years, surpassing the 13 seen in 1988.
Sunday’s earthquake was the first magnitude 4 earthquake for Southern California so far in 2025, Jones said Sunday.
The Malibu area has seen three quakes larger than magnitude 4 in the last 13 months.
Are these temblors a sign of larger quakes to come?
Experts have cautioned for months that the latest quakes don’t provide any additional clarity on the timing of Southern California’s next devastating earthquake.
“Seismologists have spent decades trying to read the tea leaves to look for patterns,” said Susan Hough, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, a few months ago.
“The seismic network was installed in Southern California 100 years ago,” she said, “because scientists thought that small earthquakes would show patterns before the big earthquakes happened. And that just didn’t work out.”
One thing has been clear, she said: “Nobody has found patterns that are statistically meaningful before big earthquakes happen.”
The recent spate of quakes, however, should reinforce the threat posed by the state’s notoriously active seismic landscape, experts say, and serve as a reminder of just how many Californians live in a danger zone.
The summer’s Eastside L.A earthquakes, for instance, were centered on faults associated with the Puente Hills thrust fault system, which is underneath downtown L.A. and swaths of southeast L.A. County, the San Gabriel Valley and northern Orange County.
Areas close to Malibu have had stronger earthquakes in the past. On Jan. 18, 1989, a magnitude 5 earthquake occurred eight miles southeast of Malibu Point, underneath Santa Monica Bay. Several people were injured, items fell off shelves in stores, and some windows were broken, according to the Southern California Earthquake Data Center.
On New Year’s Day in 1979, a magnitude 5.2 quake hit about eight miles south of Malibu Point, notable because it struck during the Rose Bowl game between USC and Michigan.
“Some of the fans in the stadium were alarmed by the shaking, but the game continued,” the data center said.
Earthquakes can reach up to a magnitude 8 in the Malibu area, USGS geophysicist Morgan Page said a few months ago, and that’s “pretty standard for anywhere in California.” That’s because, in a single seismic event, individual faults can link up, resulting in an earthquake of larger magnitude.
A magnitude 4.7 earthquake Sept. 12 in Malibu initially was thought to have a 40% chance of being associated with the Malibu fault and a 46% chance of being associated with the Anacapa fault.
Quakes of this magnitude rupture only a relatively small section of a fault, perhaps only a few hundred yards, experts say. Such modest events often happen on small, unmapped faults.
Where have we seen recent seismic activity?
Malibu — The Malibu area has been a hot spot. There was a magnitude 4.6 earthquake exactly 13 months ago — on Feb. 9, 2024 — strong enough to toss items off a counter. There was also a magnitude 4.7 on Sept. 12 — startling enough that the city’s mayor and his wife dove under their kitchen table.
Ontario — A magnitude 4 earthquake struck before dawn on Oct. 6 near Ontario International Airport. Just in Ontario, one of the most populous cities in San Bernardino County, there had been five earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger over the month preceding the Oct. 6 earthquake.
The Eastside — Eastside L.A. was rattled by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake centered in El Sereno on Aug. 12 and a magnitude 3.4 on June 2.
Kern County — A magnitude 5.2 earthquake, the strongest to strike the region in three years, shook Southern California on Aug. 6, with an epicenter northwest of the Grapevine. Another widely felt quake, magnitude 4.9, struck on July 29 about 13 miles northeast of Barstow.
What about damage?
Sunday’s quake was felt across the region, but there were no reports of damage.
This matches the experience last year. The quakes in 2024 rattled the region, but damage was decidedly modest, such as items knocked off shelves, because they were relatively small temblors.
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