It is being reported on the local news there.
Dozens of people in the northern San Fernando Valley have reported a rotten egg-like odor this morning, a smell that's also been reported as far away as Simi Valley and the Inland Empire.
Brian Humphrey, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman, said the calls started early this morning and have mostly been from the Foothill and north Valley areas of the city
I put these places on a map. It ranges 50+ miles between Simi Valley and Inland Empire - Here is the map:
I looked up what can cause a Rotten Egg Smell. Hydrogen Sulfide creates a rotten egg smell.
Hydrogen sulfide (British English: hydrogen sulphide) is the chemical compound with the formula H2S. It is a colorless, very poisonous, flammable gas with the characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs. It often results from the bacterial breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, such as in swamps and sewers; this process is commonly known as anaerobic digestion. It also occurs in volcanic gases, natural gas, and some well waters
Remember that L.A. had a couple of 3+ mag quakes last week.
The two earthquakes that struck Beverly Hills and shook a good portion of Los Angeles this week occurred at the intersection of two dangerous faults.A rotten egg smell is not just been reported in the L.A. area but the Salton Seas area along with a massive amount of fish dying happened
Although both faults are capable of producing a 7.0 temblor, experts said the quakes are probably not foreshocks to a larger quake.
The earthquakes that hit this week — a 3.2 on Monday, centered near Doheny Drive and Wilshire Boulevard — and a 3.4 after midnight Friday, centered near Wilshire Boulevard and Beverly Drive — were shallow.
There are some interesting facts about Hydrogen Sulfide:
Hydrogen sulfide is considered a broad-spectrum poison, meaning that it can poison several different systems in the body, although the nervous system is most affected. The toxicity of H2S is comparable with that of hydrogen cyanide. It forms a complex bond with iron in the mitochondrial cytochrome enzymes, thus preventing cellular respiration.
Induced hypothermia and suspended animation
In 2005, it was shown that mice can be put into a state of suspended animation-like hypothermia by applying a low dosage of hydrogen sulfide (81 ppm H2S) in the air. The breathing rate of the animals sank from 120 to 10 breaths per minute and their temperature fell from 37 °C to just 2 °C above ambient temperature (in effect, they had become cold-blooded). The mice survived this procedure for 6 hours and afterwards showed no negative health consequences.[38] In 2006 it was shown that the blood pressure of mice treated in this fashion with hydrogen sulfide did not significantly decrease.[39]
A similar process known as hibernation occurs naturally in many mammals and also in toads, but not in mice. (Mice can fall into a state called clinical torpor when food shortage occurs). If the H2S-induced hibernation can be made to work in humans, it could be useful in the emergency management of severely injured patients, and in the conservation of donated organs. In 2008, hypothermia induced by hydrogen sulfide for 48 hours was shown to reduce the extent of brain damage caused by experimental stroke in rats.[40]
As mentioned above, hydrogen sulfide binds to cytochrome oxidase and thereby prevents oxygen from binding, which leads to the dramatic slowdown of metabolism. Animals and humans naturally produce some hydrogen sulfide in their body; researchers have proposed that the gas is used to regulate metabolic activity and body temperature, which would explain the above findings.[41]
Two recent studies cast doubt that the effect can be achieved in larger mammals. A 2008 study failed to reproduce the effect in pigs, concluding that the effects seen in mice were not present in larger mammals.[42] Likewise a paper by Haouzi et al. noted that there is no induction of hypometabolism in sheep, either.[43]
At the February 2010 TED conference, Mark Roth announced that hydrogen sulfide induced hypothermia had completed Phase I clinical trials.[44] The clinical trials commissioned by the company he helped found, Ikaria, were however withdrawn or terminated by August 2011.[45][46]
Mass extinctions
Hydrogen sulfide has been implicated in several mass extinctions that have occurred in the Earth's past. In particular, a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere may have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago.[48]
Organic residues from these extinction boundaries indicate that the oceans were anoxic (oxygen-depleted) and had species of shallow plankton that metabolized H2S. The formation of H2S may have been initiated by massive volcanic eruptions, which emitted carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which warmed the oceans, lowering their capacity to absorb oxygen that would otherwise oxidize H2S. The increased levels of hydrogen sulfide could have killed oxygen-generating plants as well as depleted the ozone layer, causing further stress. Small H2S blooms have been detected in modern times in the Dead Sea and in the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Namibia.
History of Rotten Egg Smell before a volcanic eruption:
Limnic Eruption 1984 - 1700 to 1800 killed
. The survivors also reported a smell of rotten eggs and feeling warm before passing out; this is explained by the fact that at high concentrations, carbon dioxide acts as a sensory hallucinogenic. Studies with jet pilots regarding carbon dioxide report similar effects as reported by survivors, i.e. smell of rotten eggs, gunpowder and feeling of warmth.
Iceland volcano eruption 2012
Iceland volcano: First came the floods, then the smell of rotten eggs
There are many instances of volcanoes and the rotten egg smell before and after there eruption. That is a normal occurrence with volcanic eruptions.
Could gas lines have broken or sewer lines be having a problem in L.A right now and that is causing the smell? But that would mean all of them would have to have broken for the smell to go across 50+ miles.
It is said that before the large quake of San Francisco a rotten egg smell permeated the city.
LA times has an article about the smell now and says it is over a wide area.
This is interesting - here is the "HAARP" status site
This is what the picture shows at this time, notice the heat over the Southern California area and it says mag 7.1. What is not on this screen shot as it is below the picture on that page is this regarding that magnitude:
M6 - M9 - Significant change is expected. Anything over M7 is rare and special attention must be directed when readings go seven and higher. Severe storms are associated with this reading, which if a short spike can be a nearby event and a long duration and slow build being a large scale change.
