The 1933 Long Beach Earthquake (California, USA): Ground Motions and Rupture Scenario. Here are some recollections (in his own words) by Arthur G. Porter, who lived at 754 N. Zeyn at the time of the quake. Yeats, R. S. Newport-Inglewood fault zone, Los Angeles basin, California. March 11, 1933, Los Angeles, CA The Long Beach earthquake with a 6.4 magnitude tremor and powerful aftershocks hit a rapidly growing Los Angeles County at 5:54 p.m. from an epicenter south of Long Beach and three miles south of Huntington Beach. S.H. CAS Am. As summarized above, detailed accounts suggested accelerations in excess of 1 g in this location, in the same area where pipes were broken (Fig. Bull. Seismol. Because no surface rupture was observed, the ruptures are all buried at 1-km depth. The 1933 Long Beach, California, Earthquake Susan E. Hough, & Robert W. Graves Submitted July 25, 2018, SCEC Contribution #8199, 2018 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #302 We present a first-ever synoptic characterization of the distribution of ground motions from the 11 March 1933 Mw6.5 Long Beach, California, earthquake, using available macroseismic and instrumental data. 57, 117–135 (1973). S1a; see Supplemental Material). Moreover, the record from Long Beach further suggests at least two distinct sub-events (see Supplemental Material). Woodward-Clyde Consultants. Figures were generated using GMT software54. The 1933 Long Beach earthquake took place on March 10 south of downtown Los Angeles. Latitude/longitude for cities listed in the primary dataset come from the NOAA Earthquake Intensity Database: https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/intintro.shtml, last accessed 31 July, 2018. ShakeMap. Both rupture lengths are well within the scatter observed in scaling relationships for strike-slip faults45. To obtain Bull. On March 10, 1933, at 5:54 p.m., an estimated magnitude-6.3 earthquake hit Southern California. In this study we revisit the ground motions and rupture scenario of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Strong motion observations of the Kathmandu valley response during the M7.8 Gorkha earthquake sequence, Tectonophysics, 714–715. Seismol. Somerville, P. et al. The 1933 Long Beach Earthquake Introduction. Interpolated overall intensity distribution (city values; this study [see Supplemental Material]). The 1933 Long Beach Earthquake (California, USA): Ground Motions and Rupture Scenario Abstract. Lett. The earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.4 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII. 6.4. Science 78(2016), 147–149 (1933). Trifunac, M. D. Nonlinear soil response as a natural passive isolation mechanism. A. Bull. TYPE OF FAULTING: right-lateral strike-slip TIME: March 10, 1933 / 5:54 pm, PST LOCATION: 33° 37' N, 117° 58' W 5 km (3 miles) south of present-day Huntington Beach MAGNITUDE: M W 6.4. An estimated fifty million dollars' worth of property damage resulted, and 120 lives were lost. Article One compelling account was from the machine shop at Compton Junior College, where heavy machinery reportedly “shot into the air” and came down “many inches” away from the original position. The Newport-Inglewood trend was first recognized as a fault zone (Fig. Am., 106, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120160088 (2016). 33.617, -117.967 (click to see on map) Media. The seismotectonic structures of the Los Angeles region have been investigated in considerable detail. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications. While the distribution of ground motions cannot rule out rupture scenarios involving other faults, they do demonstrate that a different, or more complex, rupture scenario is not required to explain the available ground motion observations. The earthquake’s destruction, mainly to masonry buildings and schools, resulted in around 50 million dollars in damages and 115 deaths; the second greatest amount of earthquake related deaths in California’s History. Eng. The 1933 Long Beach earthquake has not been studied in as much detail as some other similar damaging earthquakes, such as the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. United States Geological Survey, 525S. Anderson, J. Bull. Description and theory of the torsion seismometer. Science Advances 2(3), e1500621 (2016). 100:5A, 2095–2123 (2010). Our final reviewed set of estimated intensity values agree well with available instrumental intensity estimates discussed above, apart from the Long Beach station, where the observed PGA value was a lower bound. Bull. In contrast, the 25-km rupture scenarios produce strong rupture directivity resulting in a zone of elevated intensities extending northwest of Long Beach that are more consistent with the observations. 3b). Four accounts suggest high accelerations in some parts of Compton (see Supplemental Material; Table S2). (b) (right) Same data as shown in 3a, but interpolated intensity field determined from intensity values for cities and towns. (1958). Worden, C. B., Gerstenberger, M. C., Rhoades, D. A. Soc. 15(1), 1–72 (1925). Am. U.S. Geological Survey (and California Geological Survey), 2006, Quaternary fault and fold database for the United States, accessed July 16, 2017, from USGS web site: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/qfaults, last accessed 28 May 2020. Res. Lat / Lng. It is more possible, however, for relatively modest effects (MMI ≤ ~5) to have gone unreported in sparsely populated areas, for example along the initial (inferred) ~10-km of the rupture. Lozos, J. C. A case for historic joint rupture of the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults. This souvenir booklet was published shortly afterwards. Regions outlined in blue correspond to zones with concentrations of broken underground pipes13. (c) Same as (a) except for 25-km × 12-km fault with shallow asperity. Our simulation model is not able to capture the details of site-specific response that might allow us to better match the observed responses. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Maher, T. J. Abstracts of reports received regarding the earthquake which occurred in Sourthern California on March 10, 1933,” 56 pp. The year was 1933! A detailed examination of the finite-fault rupture process of the 1933 earthquake has also never been explored. 5b) generates a larger zone of high intensities (MMI > 7) throughout the central Los Angeles basin compared to a 25-km rupture with shallow asperity (Fig. Soc. This study presents a first-ever synoptic investigation of ground motions and damage from the 1933 Long Beach, California, earthquake, considering both instrumental and macroseismic data, as well as a modern modeling approach. Key questions, including the concentration of damage in the Compton area, have never been addressed beyond cursory explanations involving local site response. These features seen for the representative ruptures are consistent across the suites of 40 realizations for both the 16-km long and 25-km long ruptures (see Supplement). Geophys. 4c). PubMed Article Article Hutton, K., Woessner, J. Using extensive documentation of damage and other effects, including photographs, we conclude that shaking intensities reached MMI 8–9 throughout the near-field region, including within parts of Long Beach and Compton. The magnitude 6.4 Long Beach earthquake of 1933 resulted a death toll of 120. 115 to 120 fatalities … John Muir School Source: W.L. The largest—the 1933 Long Beach earthquake—was magnitude 6.4, killed 120 people and caused $50 million in damage (in 1933 dollars). I would like to add more content within these sections and add more sections, including consequential damage (fires, etc. This paper reanalyzes some of these old regional and teleseismic data using modern techniques to enhance our understanding of this sequence and to confirm or negate previous findings. 100(2), 423–446, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120090130 (2010). Neumann, F. United States Earthquakes, U.S. Dept. By David McAlister March 11, 2020 No Comments. The Long Beach earthquake did not produce surface rupture1. Wikipedia Boore, D. M., Stewart, J. P., Seyhan, E. & Atkinson, G. M. NGA-West2 Equations for Predicting PGA, PGV, and 5% Damped PSA for Shallow Crustal Earthquakes. 3). The magnitude 6.4 temblor that hit … The 1933 Long Beach Earthquake killed approximately 115 people and injured over 1,000. LA Times staff writers: Molly Hennessy-Fiske, 3/10/2008/ Scott Harrison, 3/8/2019, The Ground Beneath our Feet: A Hundred Years of Earthquakes in Los Angeles. It remains the largest documented event in the central Los Angeles Basin region, causing widespread damage, and about 120 fatalities1. Soc. Seismol. Figure 6 plots intensity residuals as a function of distance to the fault for the three representative scenarios. Although for many locations there is not enough information to assess the statistical incidence of damage to various building types, the detailed guidelines developed for the European Mediterranean Seismic scale (EMS-98)28 are still useful to inform intensity assignments. The predicted shaking for a 25-km-long fault matches the intensity distribution, with an indication that non-linear site response on soft sediments in some near-field regions was stronger than predicted using a simple model to account for non-linearity. Byerly, P. & Dyk, H. The questionnaire program for collecting earthquake data, Earthquake Investigations in California, 1934–1935, Special Publication No. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily. Catalog MMI Source Description check CI VIII ATLAS 2 ShakeMap Atlas v4 . Rajaure, S. et al. M 6.4 - Long Beach, California Earthquake. Previous studies have explained the concentration of damage in these areas as a consequence of local amplification due to shallow low-impedance sediments37, but no detailed investigation of local site response has been undertaken. Martel, R. R. A report on earthquake damage to type III buildings in Long Beach. The Great Long Beach Earthquake of 1933 was a huge wake up call for Southern California. 415, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.01.016 (2015). Am. Barrows, A. G. A review of the geology and earthquake history of the Newport-Inglewood structural zone, Southern California, California Division of Mines and Geology Special Rep. 114, 134 pp., Sacramento (1974). Concentrations of broken pipes provides an indication of high strain levels, with estimated peak ground velocities (PGV) upwards of 0.2 m/s14, which corresponds to MMI upwards of 723. 12, 135–155, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-013-9573-x (2014). Taber, S. The Inglewood earthquake in southern California, June 21, 1920. 1933 Long Beach Earthquake. Grünthal, G. (Editor). Lett. Ambraseys, N. N. Value of historical records of earthquakes. Petrol. The 1933 Long Beach earthquake had been one of the most destructive in recent years — comparisons were immediately made to the infamous 1906 San Francisco quake, which was still fresh in public memory. Hypocenter is indicated by the green star and black lines are rupture time contours at 2-sec intervals. Their focal mechanism is pure dextral strike-slip with a NW-SE strike, matching expectations for the NIF. The Earthquake wreaked havoc and resulted in 115 deaths (Los Angeles Times). Benioff, H. The determination of the extent of faulting with application to the Long Beach earthquake. Ground motions in Compton, however, suggest both high strain and high shaking intensities. Ass. Am 100(6), 2945–2977 (2010). Soc. & Neumann, F. Modified Mercalli intensity scale of 1931. Boles, J. 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