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Will California eventually fall into the ocean?
No, California is not going to fall into the ocean. California is firmly planted on the top of the earth’s crust in a location where it spans two tectonic plates. The San Andreas Fault System, which crosses California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north, is the boundary between the Pacific Plate (that includes the Pacific Ocean) and North American Plate (that includes North America). These two plates are moving horizontally, slowly sliding past one another. The Pacific Plate is moving northwest with respect to the North American Plate at approximately 46 millimeters per year (the rate your fingernails grow). The strike-slip earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault are a result of this plate motion. There is nowhere for California to fall, however, Los Angeles and San Francisco will one day be adjacent to one another!
Learn more:
Earthquakes, Megaquakes, and the Movies
What Kind of Movement Has Occurred Along the San Andreas Fault?
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Vertical tectonic deformation associated with the San Andreas fault zone offshore of San Francisco, California
A new fault map of the shelf offshore of San Francisco, California shows that faulting occurs as a distributed shear zone that involves many fault strands with the principal displacement taken up by the San Andreas fault and the eastern strand of the San Gregorio fault zone. Structures associated with the offshore faulting show compressive...
Ryan, H.F.; Parsons, T.; Sliter, R.W.
Where's the San Andreas fault? A guidebook to tracing the fault on public lands in the San Francisco Bay region
Stoffer, Philip W.
Putting down roots in earthquake country: Your handbook for the San Francisco Bay region
This handbook provides information about the threat posed by earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay region and explains how you can prepare for, survive, and recover from these inevitable events. If you live or work in the region, you need to know why you should be concerned with earthquakes, what you can expect during and after a quake, and what...
The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program - investing in a safer future
Filson, John R.; McCarthy, Jill; Ellsworth, William L.; Zoback, Mary Lou; Stauffer, Peter H.; Hendley, James W.
ANSS-Advanced National Seismic System
Benz, Harley M.; Filson, John; Arabasz, Walter; Gee, Lind; Wald, Lisa USGS National Seismic Hazard Maps
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed new probabilistic seismic hazard maps for the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. These hazard maps form the basis of the probabilistic component of the design maps used in the 1997 edition of the NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings and Other Structures...
Frankel, A.D.; Mueller, C.S.; Barnhard, T.P.; Leyendecker, E.V.; Wesson, R.L.; Harmsen, S.C.; Klein, F.W.; Perkins, D.M.; Dickman, N.C.; Hanson, S.L.; Hopper, M.G. Forecasting California’s earthquakes
The first official earthquake forecast for California emphasizes the broad extent of the hazard and the uncertainties involved in predicting the next quakes. For the first time, researchers have reached to a consensus on the threat of large earthquakes to California, things look no worse for Los Angles than before. It still has about a 60 percent...
Kerr, R. A.
Quaternary faults of California
Lienkaemper, J.J.
Zoogeographic evidence for late Tertiary lateral slip on the San Andreas fault, California
Addicott, W.O.
California Can Learn From Recent Large Earthquakes
A new report issued by the American Red Cross and the U.S. Geological Survey documents the Chilean response and recovery efforts following the Feb. 2010 magnitude 8.8 earthquake and the lessons that California should learn from this disaster.
Geologists Recover Rocks Yielding Unprecedented Insights into San Andreas Fault
For the first time, geologists have extracted intact rock samples from 2 miles beneath the surface of the San Andreas Fault, the infamous rupture that runs 800 miles along the length of California.
A Strong Earthquake Shakes Central California Fulfilling USGS' Parkfield Forecast
Calling it "one of the most significant earthquakes in the history of seismology," William Ellsworth, chief scientist for the USGS Earthquake Hazards program in California, today commended efforts to densely instrument the location of the September 28th Parkfield 2004 Earthquake.
WERC Coastal Ecosystem Studies
Coastal ecosystem studies at Trinidad coast, California.
Pacifica, California
Photograph looks southwest onto the town of Pacifica, California and out to the Pacific Ocean, from Sweeney Ridge Trail.
PubTalk 5/2015 — Breaking Badly:Forecasting California Earthquakes
by Morgan Page, USGS Research Geophysicist
- Scientists cannot currently predict the precise time, location, and size of future damaging earthquakes.
- Historical records of earthquakes in California date back over 150 years.
- Geologists have dug trenches to extend the known history on some faults back to around 1,000 years before
California Cliffs and Coastline
Colorful vegetated clifftop near Half Moon Bay, California.
Homes along the edge of the coast in Isla Vista, California
Homes along the edge of the coast in Isla Vista, California, Santa Barbara County, face a short lifespan because of eroding bluffs that support them.
San-Andreas Fault
Aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain. By Ikluft - Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3106006