The temblor, which had a preliminary magnitude of 6.9, struck the Gulf shortly before 11 a.m., or 2 p.m. Central time. Five minutes earlier, a foreshock registering a magnitude 5.8 hit the region, said geophysicist Paul Caruso of the U.S. Geological Survey in Boulder, Colo.
The main shock was followed half an hour later by two moderate aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.0 and 5.9, according to the USGS Web site.
The jolts were felt in the San Diego area, prompting some people to evacuate a downtown San Diego office tower, according to a report on the Los Angeles Times Web site.
Three of the epicenters were under the Gulf waters between the Baja California peninsula and the Mexico mainland. One epicenter was near the peninsula's eastern coastline.
The West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no destructive tsunami was expected along the West Coast and Hawaii.
The quakes were centered between 297 miles and 343 miles south of the California-Mexico border at the boundary where the Pacific and North American plates are pulling apart, said Joann Stock, professor of geology and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology.
Scientists said some areas where strong shaking occurred may experience local underwater landslides.
The Gulf of California is home to a zigzag set of earthquake faults and scientists are still trying to figure out where the latest quakes occurred.
"The fault systems are underwater so they don't usually cause as much direct damage," Stock said.
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