Oil put LA on the map, but may have heightened earthquake risk

Hoping to escape traffic on her way home from Los Angeles International Airport, Susan Hough drove down La Cienega Boulevard through the heart of the Inglewood Oil Field. It was a jarring scene. Scores of black pump jacks nodded in the scrubby hills, like a herd of mechanical giraffes.

One hundred years ago, this would have been a common sight. Rows of derricks once stood watch over Huntington and Venice beaches. The spindly towers crowded the top of Signal Hill and flanked the La Brea tar pits.

But Hough, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, thinks there may have been another consequence of all that pumping. Her research suggests that it could have caused nearly all of the moderate earthquakes that struck the Los Angeles Basin in the first half of the 20th century, which have previously been attributed to geologic forces.

If true, that could be good news for the region.

"The L.A.