At 3:08 a.m. on December 16, 1954, the east side of Fairview Peak, about 35 miles east-southeast of Fallon, Nevada, was rocked by a huge earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale. Four minutes and 20 seconds later, a second large earthquake (magnitude 6.9), triggered by the first, shook Dixie Valley to the north. Because of the remoteness of the area, the damage was minor and no injuries were reported. But the pair of quakes left scarps (breaks) in the land surface that stretch for dozens of…
