after yesterday's earthquake you might be wondering have we been having more of them than normal well we did get the answer for you tonight and it is yes we are having the most seismically active year in almost four decades and experts say the shaking is likely to continue KKL news reporter Nicole comto is outside Caltech and Pasadena with more on the risks for Vault Zone communities right Nicole yeah that's right Pat seismologists say we have seen more earthquakes this year in southern California than in any other year since 1988 but that doesn't necessarily mean we're any more or less likely to see the big one soon they say it does just mean that we're probably going to continue to see more earthquakes after Monday's 4.4 magnitude earthquake shook homes across La it was really scary but um it was a bit of a shock yeah seismologists are now saying we are experiencing a period of increased earthquake activity in Southern California one that many people have noticed a lot more recently and did feel a few of those but not nothing as strong as what we just felt in South Pasadena by mid August we've already had 13 earthquakes measuring 4.0 or larger here this year when we normally average 10 to 12 that size over an entire year so we are seeing an ongoing um process of of earthquakes happening on this Vault Caltech researcher and geophysicist Dr Lucy Jones says this 4.4 happened along the pente hills thrust fault system which runs from the pente hills above Whittier to Pasadena and to Downtown LA and she says it has the potential to cause major damage they are consider the set of of faults capable of producing probably the most damage of any earthquake in Cal in Southern California because of the location because they run under uh old structures and uh very densely inhabited areas Jones says earthquakes here could be 5 to 10 times more destructive than earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault in fact the 1987 Wittier Narrows earthquake happened along this fault system the 5.9 killed eight people and damaged thousands of buildings and Jones says earthquakes do tend to happen less frequently along the pente hills fault system than the San Andreas fault system an earthquake tend to have at least several thousand years in between them in between the bigger ones on this fall system reporting live in Pasadena I'm Nicole comto KCAL news that's all good information thank you so much Nicole