Aftershocks are expected after this morning’s Alaska quake, according to Dr. Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the California Institute of Technology.
She says the average sequence of aftershocks for a quake this size is a 5.8, but that it could be larger than that average figure. She advises to expect many more aftershocks from today’s event.
”We think the number dies off with time, but the relative distribution from large to small is constant,” and weeks to months later, aftershocks will follow, she explains.
For example, the last 5-magnitude aftershock that followed the 1994 Northridge, California, quake was three years after the original event.
There have been at least 30 aftershocks so far for this quake.
Dr. Elizabeth Cochran of the United States Geological Survey says the Anchorage quake was a “normal faulting event” among plates under Alaska.