Kate Hutton
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"Kate Hutton", nicknamed the "Earthquake Lady" or "Dr. Kate", is staff seismology/seismologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California/Pasadena, California.

Hutton received a B.S. in astronomy from Pennsylvania State University in 1971, and an M.S. (1973) and Ph.D. (1976) in astronomy from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has worked for the Caltech earthquake center as a seismologist her entire career.

After graduation, Hutton says she found astronomy jobs scarce, so switched careers. She sees the two professions as similar: "Earth is a planet, after all, so it's sort of a matter of looking down rather than looking up." Most of her job is consumed by bureaucracy and data analysis, but immediately following a major earthquake, especially in Southern California, Hutton is sought by the media for her professional commentary. Her local celebrity is such that people take note of her shopping, whether she is replacing glassware or stocking up.

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I would say it's a very typical Imperial Valley swarm. I would tell people, like any earthquake in California, to consider it as a reminder to get the battery and food and water and everything. But I don't think there's a big danger from it.

One of the things that technology might get us is a number of seconds warning that the quake has already started, which might have stopped that train, for example.

We know the quake was about magnitude 7.0 and we know the epicenter was located 32 miles north of Joshua Tree, which would put it in the Mojave Desert area in Southern California.

It's entirely the location. There's nothing out there. It's a Marine base on one side, and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land on the other.