Mendocino RROBS Retrieval

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake ruptured the Mendocino Transform Fault offshore Northern California on December 5, 2024. The USGS and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ocean Bottom Seismic Instrument Center deployed our new fleet of rapid response ocean bottom seismographs just 11 days later—the fastest response in U.S. history. 

This deployment was the first real-world use of the new, smaller instruments reserved for rapid response efforts. With the help of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt’s research vessel Coral Sea, the instruments and valuable seismic data were recovered in January after recording hundreds of aftershocks on the seafloor for over 44 days.