This morning, a series of small earthquakes hit the North Bay  (for non-Bay Area residents, this area refers to the counties of Marin, Solano, and lower Sonoma). The strongest, which struck at 3:37 a.m., measured 4.4 on the Richter Scale.

Sonoma was one of the hardest-hit areas  of the 1906 earthquake. There are numerous photographs of the ruined Santa Rosa county courthouse  in circulation in print and on the web. You can read a newspaper account of the quake from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat online . The destruction was caused by the earth movement itself, unlike in San Francisco where most of the destruction was caused by fire. The quake of '06 is the largest natural disaster to hit Sonoma.

This morning's earthquakes were not the only reminders that we in the Bay Area live under precarious conditions. The Sonoma County Museum  is holding an exhibit entitled Force of Nature: 1906 Earthquake Centennial to commemorate the area's devastation which, as the exhibit's brochure explains, "dramatically rupture(s) our presumptions of stability."