The Salton Buttes volcano, an hour and half south of Palm Springs, and in Imperial Country. Ca - is still having movement of some kind. I think that there some water that is superheated by the magma pipe below. I'm guessing this, because the cooling magma pipe is about a mile and half underground. But this activity would be right over Obsidian Butte. Some of these micro-quakes are spread out from Obsidian Butte, and are deeper. Some are 6 and 4 miles deep, where there is indeed a magma chamber. Here are some questions that come to mind right now about these micro-quakes: Number One: Are these quakes due to cracking within a cooling magma chamber? (Magma material retracts and shrinks as it cools, thus cracking rock. ) Number Two: Are these quakes due to superheated water being forced into existing cracks? Or can both cases be in effect?
And then a third question pops to mind, a more radical one: Can some new magma and heat be seeking a way to the surface, due to crustal spreading. The crust has had a lot of movement and spreading in the area. Possible torsion too, due to the strike slipping of nearby faults? Remember, this volcanic activity is associated with a rifting zone.
All images thanks to the USGS. They do a great job of informing us.
California-Nevada Fault Map centered at 33°N,115°W
The micro-quakes I'm referring too are on the south end of the big lake you see. The other quakes are aftershocks of a 7.2 earthquake on Apr. 4, 2010. Those aftershocks are at the bottom of the picture.
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