90 micro-earthquakes rattle Southern California

Dozens of earthquakes shook parts of Southern California over the weekend. The phenomenon is called a swarm.

The Los Angeles Times said that the swarm of 90 small quakes rattled South Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday.

They were all near the Newport-Inglewood Fault and followed a 3.2 quake on the same fault.

The Newport-Inglewood Fault line runs from Culver City to Newport Beach.

So when does a series of earthquakes become a swarm?

The U.S. Geological Survey said there isn’t a definition for when a mainshock or aftershock becomes a swarm.

“The “swarm” designation is typically applied when we observe relatively many earthquakes within a relatively small area, which just don’t fit the pattern of a mainshock-aftershock sequence," the agency said in 2019.