According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), on May 15, 2020, at 4:03 am local time a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck near Tonopah, Nevada, near the California-Nevada border. This was a shallow earthquake, with depth less than 10km, as estimated by seismic instruments. The quake occurred as the result of strike slip faulting, which is common in the shallow crust of the North America plate. No injuries were reported; however parts of Highway 95 were closed due to damages.
BEYOND’s geObservatory was activated automatically, and produced a series of co-seismic and pre-seismic interferograms, which are available for viewing and downloading at http://geobservatory.beyond-eocenter.eu/. The pattern in the co-seismic interferograms reveals 10s of cm of differential displacement across the fault line. Further inspecting jointly descending and ascending interferograms we can detect a strong vertical deformation component, in addition to the expected east-west deformation component, which indicates a normal faulting mechanism in addition to the main strike-slip mechanism.
