LOS ANGELES, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Much of the Los Angeles area experienced some minor shaking early Tuesday when a light earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale struck near Yorba Linda shortly after midnight.
Some items were shaken off store shelves, but there were no injuries reported and the shaking, while widespread, was described as generally very light and caused little inconvenience other that waking people up.
"This earthquake was felt throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area from Oceanside to Santa Monica and as far east as Big Bear," The National Earthquake Information Center reported. "There have been several aftershocks, but there have been no reports of damage."
The quake was centered about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in an area of Orange County not far from the 1987 Whittier Narrows Earthquake that measured 5.9 and caused eight deaths and $358 million in property damage.
There was no immediate determination whether or not Tuesday's quake occurred along any of the same geological formations that produced the Whittier temblor.
"It is not the most (seismically) active area, but it is part of the Los Angeles Basin," Kate Hutton, a seismologist at Cal Tech University in Pasadena. "The only unusual thing about it is that it actually has been very quiet lately."
The West Coast also experienced a 5.7 earthquake late Monday, but the event struck around 210 miles off the coast of Coos Bay, Ore., and was not felt on land.
