A major California fault capable of producing magnitude 8 earthquake has begun to move for the first time on record, resulting in this year’s Ridgecrest earthquake sequence destabilizing nearby faults, Caltech scientists say in a new study published in the journal Science on Thursday.

In modern historical record, the 160-mile-long Garlock fault on the Northern edge of the Mojave desert has never been observed to produce either a strong earthquake or even creep a slow motion between earthquakes that causes a visible scar on the earth’s Surface. But new satellite radar images now show that the fault has begun to move, causing the earth to bulge, which can be viewed from space.

This is surprising, because we never saw the wine Garlok anavenol to do something. Here, suddenly, he changed his behavior, says the study’s lead author, Zachary Ross, assistant Professor of Geophysics at the California Institute of technology. We don’t know what that means.

Observations have reported further evidence that illustrates the widely persistent myth that is circulating in California and beyond that earthquakes like Ridgecrest temblors are somehow a good thing that makes future earthquakes less likely. In fact, generally speaking, earthquakes make future earthquakes more likely. Most of the time, subsequent earthquakes are smaller. But sometimes they’re bigger.

The creep illustrates how the Ridgecrest earthquake that began on the fourth of July destabilized this remote desert region of California between the States largest mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, and its lowest point, Death Valley. Not only did the Garlock fault begin to creep in one section, but There was also a substantial swarm of small earthquakes in another part of the fault, and two additional clusters of earthquakes elsewhere one South of Owens lake and the other in the Panamint valley West of Death Valley.

Whether destabilization will lead to a major earthquake in the near future is impossible to predict. In September, the U.S. Geological survey said the most likely scenario is that the Ridgecrest quake probably won’t cause a larger quake. However, the US Geological survey said the July quakes increased the likelihood of a magnitude 7.5 or greater earthquake on the nearby Garlock, Owens, Blackwater and Panamint Valley Faults over the next year.

Also, a creeping bug caused by a nearby earthquake does not necessarily mean a large earthquake is coming. The southernmost tip of the San Andreas fault has traditionally crept in response to distant earthquakes, including an 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of southern Mexico in 2017, nearly 2,000 miles away. But that doesn’t mean San Andreas is gone, says U.S. geological survey geologist Kate Sharer, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Unusually for now, Ross said the Garlock fault has been seismically quiet in the historical record so far. And while it’s unclear what the creeping and tremors could mean in the near future, the newly registered movement underscores how much potential risk Garlock faces in California if he breaks in a big way.

A large quake on the Garlock fault has the potential to send strong shaking to the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita, Lancaster, Palmdale, Ventura, Oxnard, Bakersfield and Kern County, one of the nations most productive regions for agriculture and oil. Important military installations could also get strong shaking, such as Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Fort Irwin National Training Center. The fault is crossed by two of Southern Californias most important supplies of imported water the California and Los Angeles aqueducts and critical roads like Interstate 5, state routes 14 and 58 and U.S. 395.

A major earthquake on the Garlock fault could, in turn, destabilize San Andreas. A powerful earthquake on a stretch of roughly 300-mile southern San Andreas fault could lead to the worst shaking the southern California region has felt since 1857, and send devastating tremors through Los Angeles and beyond.

The Garlock fault is accumulating a seismic strain among one of the fastest rates in California. According to U.S. geological survey geophysicist Morgan page, who was not involved in the study, the average time between earthquakes of at least magnitude 7 on the Central part of the fault is about every 1,200 years. But There’s huge differences; sometimes, only 200 years can pass between major earthquakes at fault; then, however, it can be 2,000 years before that. The last time a large earthquake is believed to have hit Garlock wine is about 465 years ago, give or take a century.

For some scientists, the physics of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake on July 5 immediately suggested that the Garlock fault would be more likely to rupture as a result. Heres one possible explanation: the southwest side of the fault that ruptured on July 5 jerked to the Northwest. This had the effect of moving the block of land away from the Garlock wine, unclamping it and making it easier for the blocks of land to accumulate seismic deformation on either side of the Garlock wine to move, as if the cyclist had decided to loosen the brakes that were gripping t ire tightly.

Satellite radar images show that the part of the Garlock fault that began to creep is about 20 miles long, with the land on the North side of the fault moving West while the other side is moving East. Radar images show that one side of the fault has shifted the most by about four-fifths of an inch compared to the other.

Helping scientists has been state-of-the-art observations with incredible high-resolution details that were not possible in any previous major California earthquake.

The Ridgecrest earthquake struck in an area that has a particularly extensive network of earthquake sensors near the seismically active Obliquely volcanic field of Inyo County, which uses heat from magma to fuel a power plant. More seismic stations have been installed since the last big earthquake in southern California in 1999, and satellite radar images taken of the Earth’s surface are now common.

In addition to Garlock’s guilt, there is also reason to focus on the risks associated with other nearby malfunctions.

These include, generally speaking, an unbroken segment of about 30 miles between the faults that ruptured in the 1872 Owens valley earthquake and Ridgecrest earthquakes, and another 75-mile gap along the Blackwater fault system between the faults caused the Ridgecrest earthquake and the magnitude 7.3 landers earthquake of 1992. Someday, these fractured segments will eventually need to break apart to catch up with the movement of tectonic plates, but its not known if this will happen in our lifetime.

Earthquake scientists are not associated with a study called the discovery caused creep on the Garlock fault scientifically interesting that should be better understood, but stress that its effects are not clear. Although Garlock has not observed creep before in response to large earthquakes, other faults that have crept have not seen a break in large earthquakes.

Its actually probably quite common and if so … that doesn’t necessarily mean it portends something terrible, page told the U.S. Geological survey.

In addition, creep is only observed probably in a relatively shallow area. What was really interesting was what happens in the depths where earthquakes occur, says USGS seismologist Elizabeth Cochran, who was not involved in the study. Earthquakes typically occur between 1 mile and 10 miles deep; creep calculated likely occurred in the tiniest hundreds of feet below the surface.

More research needs to be done on whether the release of seismic energy in the form of a creeping fault near the surface advances or slows down a subsequent earthquake, said Scharer of the U.S. Geological survey. In this particular case, the amount of creep and its shallowness will do little to affect the timing of when the next earthquake hits the Garlock fault, Scharer said.

Sometimes, large earthquakes can lead to others; a classic example was in 1992, when a magnitude 6.1 Joshua tree temblor in April was followed two months later by a magnitude 7.3 landers earthquake, which in turn triggered just a few hours later a magnitude 6.3 Big Bear earthquake; seven years later a magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred in the Hector mine. But in other cases, a single large earthquake and associated tremors can lead to decades of seismic events, like the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.

Despite the uncertainty, Whats happening in this region carries close attention, given How Garlock wine is an important major drawback for southern California. There are a few big earthquakes that have been observed in California in our time, and just because something hasn’t been observed in the past doesn’t mean it can’t happen.