The three earthquakes that rattled western Nevada on Wednesday morning caused some damage to California's fragile Bodie State Historic Park, which will remain closed until Sunday while rangers repair and assess the safety of structures in the beloved gold-mining ghost town.
The epicenter of the series of moderate earthquakes, ranging from magnitude 5.5 to 5.7, occurred about 14 miles northeast of Bodie, near the small town of Hawthorne, Nev., near the California border. They were followed by about a dozen smaller aftershocks. No injuries have been reported.
"Everything is still standing, but there is some damage" in Bodie, one of the best preserved ghost towns in America, said Matthew Green, chief ranger for the Sierra District of California State Parks.
"There's some damage to a roof, broken glass windows, some interior damage and some brickwork. Mostly it's bricks," because several old structures, such as the historic Dechambeau Hotel, are either built of brick or have brick facades, Green said.
The park will stay closed until Sunday, while rangers clean up, make repairs and review the park's safety for visitors.
Wednesday's earthquake was felt throughout California's Central Valley and as far away as San Francisco, Reno and Las Vegas, according to the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada in Reno. The epicenter was 52 miles northeast of Mammoth Lakes. More than 10,000 Nevada and California residents felt the events and posted responses to the USGS "Did you feel it?" website.
"Rolling pretty good on the west shore of Tahoe," said Melody Sweet, who lives in Tahoma, near Squaw Valley and Homewood. "Biggest I have felt in the last 11 years here."
Sonic booms rolled through the American River canyon, said Stacy Keith Catrambone, who lives near the canyon in the Sierra foothills outside Placerville. "They shook our house tonight! Not much, but enough to get the neighborhood talking. Amazing that travels through the mountains."
In Bodie, glass was broken in the windows of the Boone Store and Warehouse, an 1879 building filled with artifacts, including several original Edison light bulbs. Brickwork was also damaged at the Dechambeau Hotel, on the south end of Main Street, said Green.
The three quakes were located in a spot called "Walker Lane" that is known to be seismically active, according to geologist Leslie C. Gordon, spokesperson for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.
This restless region is located between two large and very different geomorphic provinces: California's Sierra Nevada and Nevada's Great Basin, she said. The California side is considered a "strike-slip" plate tectonic boundary; the Nevada side is a place of normal faulting and uplift, popularized in the award-winning book "Basin and Range" by writer John McPhee.
Although there are young volcanic areas east of the Sierra, these quakes are unlikely to be related to volcanic activity, Gordon said.
The fragile 8,000-foot high mining camp of Bodie has been rattled before, although most of its seismic activity usually comes from a different spot, further south, near Independence and Lone Pine. That is the site of faults that run along the base of two parallel mountain ranges: the Sierra Nevada on the west and Inyo Mountains on the east flank of Owens Valley.
Bodie, administered by the Bodie Foundation, is valued because so little of it remains. Damaged by fire, vandalism, weather and age, only about 110 buildings have survived in Bodie, located at the end of California State Route 270, 13 miles east of US 395. It is preserved in a state of "arrested decay," with interiors remaining as they were left, stocked with goods.
Now the once-bustling town is visited only by tourists, howling winds _ and an occasional earthquake.
