12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
A magnitude-6.5 earthquake rattled western Nevada just before sunrise May 15, 2020 waking up people at 4:03 a.m. local time, well before their morning alarms went off, according to news reports.
This is the strongest earthquake to shake Nevada in 65 years. As of 5 a.m. local time, six magnitude-4 or higher aftershocks had already rocked the region, including a magnitude-5.1 aftershock just 23 minutes later, at 4:26 a.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The earthquake struck 34.7 miles (56 kilometers) west of Tonopah, Nevada, near the California-Nevada border, about 120 miles (193 km) southeast of Carson City. Shaking was felt as far away as Sacramento and Reno. People also reported feeling shaking in Las Vegas, about 200 miles (330 km) southeast of the quake’s epicenter. So far, there aren’t any reports of injuries.
The earthquake originated 1.7 miles (2.8 km) underground, in the shallow crust of the North American plate. The USGS has classified it as a strike slip fault, which happens at vertical fractures when the rocky plates that make up Earth’s surface move horizontally. To visualize this movement, place two fists together and move one backward, or watch this 1-second USGS video.
The earthquake happened within Walker Lane, an active seismic zone located along part of the California-Nevada border. The Walker Lane zone is a hotspot; it contains up to 25% of the motion where the North America and Pacific Plate interact, USGS said. The remainder of that motion largely happens in the San Andreas fault system.
Over the past 50 years, about two dozen magnitude-5 or higher earthquakes have hit within 62 miles (100 km) of today’s spot, largely to the west and south, USGS reported. In roughly the same region, for instance, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck in December 1932 and a magnitude-6.5 quake hit in January 1934.
I have a contact that lives in the vicinity who made the following email report;
“Yeah, I was sitting at my computer facing due East, and I felt it coming at me from out of the Southeast. The hanging lights confirmed that with the direction of their swing. It had the rolling “feel” of a shallow quake with some pretty good force pushing it.
My best first guess for origin was the Hawthorne, NV area, and at a force over 6.0, since Hawthorne is about 130 to the Southeast, the felt force & the distance would just about be right for the way it felt passing thru here.
Hawthorne always concerns me, since it is built right over one of the thinnest surface crust areas in North America, and is also one of the largest repositories for ordinance & high explosives in the U.S. The Hawthorne AAD* is 226 sq miles of explosive bunkers, of which about 200 Sq Mi are in actual use the last time I read the published stats. The actual bunker count is numbered at 2,427, and they claim status as “The Worlds Largest” ordinance depot. They did supply the majority of the ordinance used to fight WWII, so there is that.
The origin of Hawthorne AAD might be seen as beginning with the Black Tom Depot explosion in New Jersey in 1916. Then the Morgan Munitions Depot explosion in 1918, also in New Jersey. There was a popular belief that German sabotage might have been the cause. The Germans did have motive, means, & opportunity, but when an explosive depot cooks off, there isn’t much left in the way of forensic evidence, and no case was ever made to a positive conclusion. Then in 1926 The Lake Denmark Naval Ammunition Depot blew up, also in New Jersey. These were all massive explosions that killed or injured people at great distance.
Congress got involved, and passed a pretty open ended mandate, that a Depot be commissioned in the West, and no farther that 1,000 miles from the coast, which would put in play the entire State of Nevada, and about half of Utah to boot.
The Hawthorne area had been mined since the 1850’s, and the studied geology, high level of earthquake activity, & prolific geothermal eruptions in region should have been enough to indicate it would be a bad choice to store millions of pounds of explosives on top of it.
I’d guess the final location decision in 1930 was made on a Friday afternoon, by a mid level D.C. bureaucrat, who just stuck a pin in a map & called it good. Watching the news these days, I really don’t think things have changed that much.
*Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD) is a U.S. Army ammunition storage depot located near the town of Hawthorne in western Nevada in the United States. It is directly south of Walker Lake. The depot covers 147,000 acres (59,000 ha) or 226 sq. mi. and has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) storage space in 2,427 bunkers. HWAD is the “World’s Largest Depot” and is divided into three ammunition storage and production areas, plus an industrial area housing command headquarters, facilities engineering shops, etc.
Maybe it’s the beginning of the promised apocalypse?