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Magma Under Tahoe Causes Small Quakes

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From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Magma moving deep below Lake Tahoe apparently triggered an unprecedented swarm of 1,600 tiny earthquakes -- none bigger than magnitude 2.2 -- during a seven-month period. The earthquakes stopped in February and there was no cause for alarm, experts reported this week in the journal Science.

The migration of the molten rock material 20 miles beneath the surface of the Sierra Nevada also likely caused the mountain beneath the Mt. Rose ski resort southwest of Reno to rise about three-eighths of an inch, researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, said.

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