Earthquake: 3.6 quake shakes Ventura County

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake shook up Ventura County, sending light or weak shaking into Oxnard, Camarillo and Thousand Oaks, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake began just off the coast of Point Mugu State Park, less than half a mile from Thornhill Broome State Beach. The worst shaking was level 3 or level 4 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale — enough to make the shaking felt quite noticeably but too weak to cause any significant damage.

The earthquake occurred at 5:07 p.m. In the last 10 days, there have been no earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

Seismologist Lucy Jones said in a tweet that the earthquake was deep, 11 miles down, “so no one was very near to it and thus no one was strongly shaken.”

Jones said the epicenter was near, perhaps on, the Anacapa fault, part of the system pushing up the Santa Monica Mountains.

It was close to the Malibu Coast fault zone, which is just west of a series of other west-to-east faults like the Santa Monica, Hollywood and Raymond.

Those faults are part of a major tectonic boundary in Southern California between the Santa Monica Mountains to the north and the Los Angeles Basin to the south. It is possible that the Santa Monica, Hollywood and Raymond faults could rupture nearly simultaneously in the same earthquake.

A magnitude 7 earthquake on this fault zone would be catastrophic. The Santa Monica fault zone cuts through the heart of the Westside, straddling or paralleling Santa Monica Boulevard through Century City and Westwood before veering due west, with segments running into Brentwood, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades.

The Hollywood fault runs along the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood and through the heart of Hollywood.

The Raymond fault runs from northeast L.A. through South Pasadena, Pasadena, San Marino, Arcadia, Monrovia and the unincorporated area of East Pasadena. For stretches, the fault runs alongside parts of Eagle Rock, York and Huntington boulevards, and under a stretch of the 110 Freeway in South Pasadena.

Read more about Southern California earthquakes.