Scripps studies offer new picture of Lake Tahoe's earthquake potential

Two newly published papers provide a deeper look at earthquake vulnerability for the Lake Tahoe region

		IMAGE: Scripps researchers deploy a CHIRP instrument to survey the faults below Lake Tahoe. Click here for more information.

For more than a decade, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have been unraveling the history of fault ruptures below the cobalt blue waters of Lake Tahoe one earthquake at a time. Two new studies by the Scripps research team offer a more comprehensive analysis of earthquake activity in the Lake Tahoe region, which suggest a magnitude-7 earthquake occurs every 2,000 to 3,000 years in the basin, and that the largest fault in the basin, West Tahoe, appears to have last ruptured between 4,100 and 4,500 years ago.