M 6.5 Earthquake near Boise, Idaho
A strong M 6.5 earthquake struck central Idaho today, 120 km northeast of Boise, at a depth of 10km. The USGS is warning that aftershocks are expected, and provided the following tectonic summary:
The March 31, 2020, M 6.5 earthquake west of Challis, Idaho (about 120 km northeast of Boise), occurred as the result of strike slip faulting within the shallow crust of the North America plate. Preliminary focal mechanism solutions for the event, which describe the style of faulting in an earthquake, indicate slip occurred on a steeply dipping fault striking either east-west (right-lateral) or north-south (left-lateral). This earthquake occurred within the Intermountain Seismic Belt, a prominent zone of recorded seismicity in the Intermountain West, and is within the western part of the Centennial Tectonic Belt, an area of southwest-northeast extension north of the Snake River Plain. The quake is about 16 km north-northeast of the Sawtooth fault, a 60-km-long normal fault that extends along the eastern base of the Sawtooth Range.
Assessing the impact
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- M 6.5 Earthquake – west of Challis, Idaho, March 31, 2020
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