The Mendocino Triple Junction is the meeting place of the Gorda, Pacific and North American plates, massive moving slabs of Earth’s crust that are also known as lithospheric plates.

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

The small Gorda Plate — often referred to jointly with the Juan de Fuca Plate to the north — is diving under the North American plate in a process called subduction. It is part of what scientists call the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from Northern California into Canada.

“In this Triple Junction area, it’s a complicated jigsaw puzzle,” said Lori Dengler, professor emeritus of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt.

Tuesday’s magnitude 6.4 earthquake occurred at 2:34 a.m. southwest of the small Humboldt County community of Ferndale, about 210 miles (345 kilometers) northwest of San Francisco. The quake was centered offshore and numerous aftershocks have followed.

Initial analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey points to the Gorda Plate as the quake’s source.

“The location, depth and faulting mechanism indicate that this event likely occurred within the subducting Gorda Plate,” the USGS said.

DOES THIS HAPPEN OFTEN?

It was the latest in a long history of large quakes that have struck the lightly populated region of redwood forests and quaint Victorian homes as the plates grind against each other.

The USGS said that in the past century there have been at least 40 other earthquake of magnitude 6 or larger, including six quakes of magnitude 7 or larger, within 155 miles (250 kilometers) of where Tuesday’s quake was centered.

The quake occurred one year to the day after the nearby Dec. 20, 2021, Petrolia quake. That quake was actually two overlapping quakes of magnitudes 6.2 and 5.7, according to the USGS.

“We have hundreds of faults in the vicinity of what we call the Triple Junction,” Dengler said. “It’s just been sheared up. There are all sorts of pieces.”

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The bill would have allowed victims of natural disasters, including fires, floods and hurricanes, to sue fossil fuel companies over harm to themselves or their property for damage totaling at least $10,000. Home insurers would also have been able to seek damages under the legislation. The proposal was announced weeks after the Los Angeles-area fires broke out in January, burning thousands of homes and killing at least 30 people.

The Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the bill late Tuesday, with several Democrats abstaining, but left open the possibility for it to be reconsidered later this year. Opponents also said it would threaten jobs in the energy industry by dealing a blow to business, and that it would be difficult to prove a specific company’s responsibility for a particular natural disaster.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat representing San Francisco who authored the bill, rejected the argument that it would lead to higher gas prices. He said it was about holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for the impacts of climate change. The bill would have eased the burden on disaster survivors and insurance companies to cover damage costs, he said.

“Today’s vote is a setback for the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires and for the cost of living in California,” Wiener said in a statement. “Victims of the Eaton and Palisades Fire — and of all climate disasters — deserve accountability for the decades of Big Oil lies that devastated their communities.”

When fossil fuels such as oil and gas are burned for energy, carbon dioxide and other emissions enter the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the planet to warm. Climate change has made natural disasters more frequent and intense.

State Sen. Anna Caballero, a Democrat representing part of the Central Valley, said ahead of the vote that lawmakers’ decision not to support the bill shouldn’t be viewed as a move to deprioritize environmental policy. And she said it wouldn’t help people who lost their homes to recent fires rebuild.

“If this was going to actually result in building homes in the fire zones faster, better and with more efficiency, I would probably support it,” she said. “But from my view, this is more about lawyers. This is about litigation.”

Wiener said it was important for California to remain a climate leader, invoking President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental policies.

Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to identify state rules he said could hinder “America’s energy dominance.” He called out California’s cap-and-trade program, as well as other climate policies in New York and Vermont.

The California bill’s failure to advance comes after lawmakers in recent years blocked a proposal that would have made oil companies liable for the health problems of people who live close to oil wells.

California, a U.S. trendsetter on climate policies, has approved policies over the years to limit emissions from cars, lawn mowers, trucks and trains. But some of those measures have faced threats from the Trump administration. The state Air Resources Board pulled back its requests for federal approval to enforce rules curbing pollution from diesel-powered big rigs and trains ahead of Trump’s return to office.

Other major California rules are at risk. Congressional Republicans introduced proposals last week to block state policies approved by President Joe Biden’s administration that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, cut tailpipe emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, and curb smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks.

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