Series of small earthquakes in region Thursday night

Residents north of Lake Tahoe, Reno, Washoe City, Carson City and Dayton have been responding to a group of earthquakes Thursday night, the largest one a 3.7 magnitude trembler that was centered just east of Washoe Lake at 9:49 p.m.

Between 1:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Thursday:

1.1 magnitude 5.6 miles N of Tahoe City at 2:46 p.m.

2.3 magnitude 5.4 miles WNW of Mt. Rose at 8:43 p.m.
0.8 magnitude 4.8 miles WNW of Mt. Rose at 8:49 p.m.
2.4 magnitude 4.8 miles WNW of Mt. Rose at 8:51 p.m.
1.0 magnitude 4.8 miles WNW of Mt. Rose at 8:57 p.m.
2.4 magnitude 3.9 miles ESE of Washoe City at 9:36 p.m.
1.5 magnitude 4.1 miles ESE of Washoe City at 9:37 p.m.
2.0 magnitude 4.0 miles ESE of Washoe City at 9:42 p.m.
3.7 magnitude 3.8 miles SE of Washoe City at 9:49 p.m.

Nevada is a very seismologically active area with thousands of small earthquakes annually and it is not unusual to have them hit it swarms.

"This is the nature of earthquakes," said Mickey Cassar, a records tech with seismic data at the University of Nevada, Reno said during a 2017 Carson Valley swarm. "There are ebbs and flows. Earthquakes happen this way, a sequence goes on for awhile."

The Carson Valley and all of Northern Nevada and the Sierra Nevada are not strangers to earthquakes as the area is full of fault lines.

In this photo of fault lines in this story, it shows historical ruptures with a red line. These have ruptured within the last 150 years.

Quaternary Faults by Age
Orange Line - <15,000 years
Light Green Line - <130,000 years
Green Line - <750,000 years
Light Blue - <1.8 million years