Researchers say wet winter could lead to more earthquakes

It has been a wet winter in California, and researchers at U.C. Berkeley say the runoff from the rain and snow could mean more earthquakes.

They say the weight of it puts pressure on the mountains, and as the water runs off and dries out, the earth’s crust starts to flex. That could trigger earthquakes.

This comes from a study that looked at 3,000 earthquakes over nine years. Researchers say the wet winters came with an increase in smaller earthquakes, and this has been an exceptionally wet winter.