Magnitude of San Andreas Fault???
Jul 15, 2010
in
Earthquake Questions
I have a few questions…
One, I live in Bakersfield, CA… not too far from the San Andreas Fault. If the next "big one" is predicted to be 8.0, what will that radiate to in Bakersfield?
Two, my one story house was built in 1978. Do you think it will collapse?
And third, will it be a "rolling" quake or a "side to side" shake?
Any serious and professional opinions would be greatly appreciated!
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3 comments
Rommel R on July 15, 2010 at 5:15 pm
It really depends on where the "slip" will happened. If you house has a good foundation, it might survived the quake but it may not survived the aftershocks. At least, it will give you time to escape. A magnitude 8 earthquake is 30times stronger than a mag. 7. You should always be prepared.
I live near Manila, Philippines. Our city has 2 parallel faultlines. Our house is situated between those faultlines. Experts say that a earthquake happens in our area every 400 years, the last one was 410 years ago.. The big one is coming..
Our country experiences earthquakes everyday, some of the cannot be felt by humans.
goldenplate2007 on July 15, 2010 at 5:15 pm
theres always a chance of an earthquake happening there……
Sean C on July 18, 2010 at 1:14 am
I was looking at the maps of Bakersfield and the San Andreas Fault and I don’t think you’d have to worry about structural collapse in the case of another magnitude 8 quake on the portion of the San Andreas that’s closest to you. The last such quake was the 1857 Fort Tejon quake, which happened before Bakersfield was founded. I tried to find a shake map for that quake on the Internet but haven’t been able to find one yet. But judging how far away Bakersfield is from the fault you’d probably experience relatively strong shaking (side to side) with things falling off of shelves but not any major structural damage. You might find cracks around your house.
A bigger threat to Bakersfield is the White Wolf Fault. This caused the magnitude 7.3 1952 Kern County earthquake, which was the biggest earthquake to affect your area. The main 7.3 jolt didn’t cause substantial damage in downtown Bakersfield but a 5.8 aftershock a month later occurred DIRECTLY underneath the downtown area. This led to some major damage there, including collapsed buildings. However, the fault usually produces such quakes once every couple hundred years so it should be at least 100 years before a 7 plus quake happens again on that fault. That being said, even a low 6 quake can cause serious damage to modern buildings if they’re right next to the epicenter. That could happen to Bakersfield in the next 50 years. And there are also other faults in your area that could cause quakes at any time. So I’d retrofit your house to be safe (if the house needs it), especially if you can afford it.