how likely is it that the “big one” is going to happen along the san andreas fault pretty soon?

2 comments

1. 

   Zort on September 30, 2009 at 9:32 am

   The answer varies depending on your definition of "Soon", with it being "Extremely unlikely" if soon = the next few minutes, and "Very likely" if you adhere to the geological application of "Soon", meaning the next few hundred years. The San Andreas fault is actually already overdue for a large earthquake, but earthquakes are unpredictable enough that it may not happen for decades yet.

   How long it would take for life to return to normalcy in Los Angeles depends on the magnitude of the quake. If its a seven or less, most of the damage will probably be repaired within a month. An eight is literally ten times stronger than a seven, however, and releases energy equivalent to 1 billion tons of TNT (1 gigaton), and would probably cause severe damage to LA’s infrastructure that would qualify as a national emergency. A nine would be catastrophic, and would probably take years to repair all the damaged bridges and power lines.

2. 

   Living Legends. Still Rockin On! on September 30, 2009 at 9:32 am

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#The_University_of_California_study_on_.22the_next_big_one.22

   http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-jordan9jan09,0,5311925.story

   http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=30274

   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/22/MN259188.DTL

   http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/12/09_cholame.shtml

   http://www.physorg.com/news70114196.html