While no earthquake has produced surface rupture on the Garlock fault in historic times (although cracks opened along a short segment of the fault in 1952, due to the shaking of the Kern County earthquake, and groundwater removal has also triggered slip in the Fremont Valley area), there have been a few sizable quakes recorded along the Garlock fault zone. Like all of California, the Central Valley—which is ringed by faults—is earthquake country. The left-lateral Garlock Fault, 250 km long, bounds Searles Valley on the south and is the most geologically significant fault in the area. Shaking can begin suddenly but have lasting impacts. [1992] documented four paleoearthquakes on the Garlock fault in Searles Valley and showed that the most recent earthquake was younger than a radiocarbon date within the range 1490–1810. Trenches T-9a and T-10 (Fig. The Garlock fault extends from the San Andreas Fault in the west to Death Valley in the east, and hasn’t had a major earthquake in about 500 years. Searles Valley - Owlshead Mountains. / Image: SCEC screenshot of USGS Recent Earthquakes Map. This subsection includes the Slate Range, El Paso Mountains, Quail Mountains, Owlshead Mountains, southern ends of the Argus and Panamint Ranges, Searles Valley, Long Valley, and the southern end of Panamint Valley. When we sum up the earthquake probability along the entire length of the Garlock Fault, the main fault that runs perpendicular to the Ridgecrest faults, we estimate a 2.3% chance of a magnitude-7.7 Garlock Fault rupture in the next year — in other words, one chance in 43. In conjunction with available slip rates for the Garlock fault, the geomorphic offsets suggest that average recurrence intervals are probably within the range of 600–1200 years south of El Paso Mountains, about 200–750 years in Searles Valley, about 200–1300 years in Pilot Knob Valley, and about 200–3000 years near Leach Lake and in the Avawatz Mountains.Published versio This section does not cite any sources. Paleoseismic Results from the Christmas Canyon West Site, Central Garlock Fault, Searles Valley, California. Mostly built-up after the 1940s, the directly hit community of Ridgecrest may have come out better than others due to its relatively recent construction and sparse and rural population. The valley is bound on the west by the Argus Range and on the east by the Slate Range (Fig. The Garlock Fault marks the northern boundary of the area known as the Mojave Block, as well as the southern ends of the Sierra Nevada and the valleys of the westernmost Basin and Range province. 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