San Andrea Fault

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San Andrea Fault

Introduction

The San Andreas Fault is a geologic fault zone between two tectonic plates that runs from San Francisco south to San Diego in California. It is an area of frequent earthquakes caused by the plates sliding past each other. It is so called because it runs along the San Andreas Valley.

The San Andreas fault was brought dramatically to world attention in 1906 when sudden displacement along the fault produced the great San Francisco earthquake and fire. This earthquake was but one of many that have resulted throughout its life of about 15-20 million years.

Body

The entire San Andreas fault system is more than 800 miles long and extends to depths of at least 10 miles within the Earth. The fault is a complex zone of crushed and broken rock from a few hundred feet to a mile wide. Many smaller faults branch from and join the San Andreas fault zone.

The Pacific plate is moving northwest in relation to the North American plate, and it is believed that the total displacement along the fault since its formation more than 30 million years ago has been about 350 mi. Movement along the fault causes earthquakes; several thousand occur annually

The basic science is pretty straightforward. The earth lurches from time to time because its outer shell is broken into huge, solid plates floating on a layer of molten rock that has the consistency of Silly Putty. These tectonic plates are constantly jostling each other, like rafts crowded into a...

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