 John Parrish, California State Geologist, P-A-R-R-I-S-H, California Geological Survey Department of Conservation. Gotcha. So tell me what's bringing you in here today so we can kind of set the stage for what it is you're doing here? Well, this morning about 8.30 we started experiencing a swarm of earthquakes south of the Salton Sea about five miles west of the town of Brawley in Imperial County. And swarms in this area are not uncommon. However, some of the magnitudes of the faults in this swarm are uncommon and therefore caught our attention. So what kind of magnitudes have we seen today? We've had over 100 earthquakes so far today, most in the magnitude three range. However, there have been eight earthquakes over magnitude four and two of those have been over magnitude five. And that obviously is what launches some extra concern and just paying closer attention then? Yes, it's not just the clustering we're used to, these kind of swarms here, but it's these larger magnitude earthquakes that have caught our attention. Somebody would ask, is this surprising to you or is this something you guys expect to see? Earthquakes in this area, swarms in this area have been going on for decades. The last great period of swarms was back in the 1970s. It's been fairly quiet although there have been a few swarms. So seeing a swarm here today is not something that we did not expect. There's a lot of talk about the big one happening somewhere along the San Andreas Fault and obviously them feeling a shaking in Southern California, it makes them think, is this some sort of a warning for the next big earthquake or somehow connected to it? We don't think so. We've had, as I said, plenty of swarms down here. None of the swarms in the past have ever led to an earthquake on any of the nearby earthquake faults. So we're not too concerned at this point about this triggering any earthquakes on any nearby faults. You guys convened a conference call with some of the folks that are the experts in this and you had a discussion and what was the conclusion of that call? Yes, today about 2 o'clock we had a conference call with the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, which is a subcommittee of the Emergency Management Agency. These are experts in earthquakes, both seismology and geology. And our considered opinion was that although this was a large swarm with some high-magnitude earthquakes in it, it is not unexpected or uncommon. And we would expect that this swarm would last for several days before tapering off and could actually last for several more weeks. Is there a chance that they could see a larger magnitude than the 5.5 we just saw? Yes, probably within the next 24 to 36 hours we would not be surprised to see an earthquake between magnitude 5 and 6 in this area. Describe what's a magnitude 6 earthquake like in this area? What kind of things happen? Well, at a magnitude 5 you'll see the ground shaking. You'll feel the shaking. At a magnitude 6 you'll feel it even more so. California, of course, is an earthquake country and people need to be prepared for this. At a magnitude 5 or 6, you will see things fall off shelves, books may come off shelves, in stores canned goods and bottles may come off the shelves. So you could see a considerable ground shaking from this type of an earthquake. This may seem like a dumb question, but is it better that this is happening out in Brawley, which is not like downtown Los Angeles? Is there a difference of this happening here versus maybe in a densely populated area? Not especially. These all affect people the same way. In a densely populated area like Los Angeles, there may be more people feeling things and there may be more structures that will be affected. But the damage amount would still be expected to be the same proportionately. So what are you doing here at the State Operations Center today? We've come into the Operations Center so we can monitor the swarm and that we can discuss possibilities and what warnings should be given out to the public and to emergency managers.