Any BAUTers in Nevada? Just saw on the news about a 6.2 mag Earthquake with a shallow epicenter of about 3 miles. Anyone there / hurt / nearby but OK?

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Seems a ways from any significant population areas:

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A fairly significant quake for that area. Seems to be a manifestation of Basin and Range province extension tectonics.

I see on the news that the quake trashed a town in Nevada.

These earthquakes are getting a little out of the way lately. Here in Mexicali we have been experimenting one most every day and sometimes even 2 or more times a day for aproximately 2 and a half weeks now.




Fortunately, we have not had a very strong one, the strongest I think was about 5.3 but sure enough to scare you. Why this has been happening lately is still not very clear, the only thing the news has mentioned is that it is do to a new fault discovered recently here in the area.



Titana

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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius (and a lot of courage) to move in the opposite direction....Albert Einstein.

Could the Pacific plate moving north be having an effect?

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Very indirectly. The northward movement of the Pacific plate relative to the North America plate is a continuation of a much older tectonic sequence - the over-riding of the Farallon plate by the NA plate. There are two remnants of the Farallon plate left - the Cocos to the south of the San Andreas fault and the Juan de Fuca to the north. The rest of the Farallon has been subsumed beneath the continental crust of North America.

The interaction between that plate and the bottom of the NA plate is what geologists believe is causing the the Basin & Range province to 'stretch' or extend. This extension causes the crust to break up into fault blocks and tilt - much like dominoes would. The blocks slide against one another as 'normal' faults. The resulting landscape has been described as "caterpillars marching north".

The recent earthquake in Nevada is undoubtedly a consequence of one of these normal faults slipping a bit. I haven't checked the USGS website yet to see the seismologic interpretation yet, but that's my bet.

For an interesting read on the area, take a look at Geology of the Great Basin, by Bill Fiero. John Mcphee's Basin and Range is also excellent - it's more of an essay than Fiero's book, but McPhee is an accomplished lay-geologist.

I love the Basin & Range area and the Mojave desert.

I checked the USGS page on this quake - definitely a normal fault movement. The beachball (moment tensor sloution) shows a bit of slip, but that's not unusual.

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2..._nsa9_cmt.html