The series of aftershocks was extremely "vigorous", according to researchers at the Southern California Earthquake Center, and this further indicate strike-slip activity along faults that line this section of the "Eastern Sierra Rift Zone," a location between the Sierra Nevada range to the west and the basin and range country stretching east through Nevada and Utah.

A magnitude 5.2 quake shook the Owens Lake area Thursday evening, part of a recent chain of hundreds of quakes that began rattling that area early that morning, when the first quake of magnitude 5.0 struck.

It is believed that the quake boom is part of a series of a dozen major quake events dating back to 1933, highlighted by the 5.8 magnitude Ridgecrest Earthquake of 1995. The area had been relatively quiet, however, between 2001 and now.

A similar series of faults is blamed for the massive 1872 Lone Pine Earthquake, which was as large as the great 1906 San Francisco quake, and caused damage in Los Angeles.(Xinhuanet )