What are 5 interesting facts about the San Andreas Fault?
The San Andreas Fault (SAF) is 700-800 miles long and approximately ten miles deep. It is about 28 million years old. Most faults are found in the ocean but the SAF is a plate boundary found on land. The fault does not go through a city but it divides the state of California into two parts.
What is unique about San Andreas Fault?
The fault zone is marked by distinctive landforms that include long straight escarpments, narrow ridges, and small undrained ponds formed by the settling of small blocks within the zone. Many stream channels characteristically jog sharply to the right where they cross the fault.
Why is San Andreas Fault so famous?
The San Andreas Fault is the most famous fault in the world. Its notoriety comes partly from the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but rather more importantly because it passes through California, a highly-populated state that is frequently in the news. Some faults are many miles long.
Is San Andreas the biggest fault?
San Andreas Fault Line Map The California Earthquake Authority wrote on their website that the San Andreas Fault line is one of the largest in the world that runs more than 800 miles from the Salton Sea to Cape Mendocino.
What type of a fault is the San Andreas Fault?
strike-slip fault
strike-slip fault – a fault on which the two blocks slide past one another. The San Andreas Fault is an example of a right lateral fault.
What would happen if the San Andreas Fault ruptured?
Narrator: Parts of the San Andreas Fault intersect with 39 gas and oil pipelines. This could rupture high-pressure gas lines, releasing gas into the air and igniting potentially deadly explosions. Stewart: So, if you have natural-gas lines that rupture, that’s how you can get fire and explosions.
How does the San Andreas Fault cause earthquakes?
An earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. The tectonic plates are always slowly moving, but they get stuck at their edges due to friction. Parts of the San Andreas Fault system adapt to this movement by constant “creep” resulting in many tiny shocks and a few moderate earth tremors.
How many earthquakes has the San Andreas Fault caused?
Public domain.) There are only two large known historic earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault in southern CA, the most recent in 1857, and before that one in 1812.
How old is the San Andreas Fault?
about 28 million years old
The San Andreas fault is about 28 million years old. Back then, California didn’t exist, at least not recognizably so.
Will the San Andreas Fault cause a tsunami?
The San Andreas fault cannot create a big tsunami, as depicted in the movie. Local tsunamis might be generated along the California coast, if the shaking from an earthquake on the San Andreas fault triggers underwater landslides or if there is slip on a smaller offshore fault.
What would happen if the San Andreas Fault broke?
If a large earthquake ruptures the San Andreas fault, the death toll could approach 2,000, and the shaking could lead to damage in every city in Southern California — from Palm Springs to San Luis Obispo, seismologist Lucy Jones has said.
Which type of fault is most common in San Andreas?
The San Andreas Fault is a transform or strike-slip fault that moves sideways, rather than the more common faults that move up on one side and down on the other. Nearly all transform faults are short segments in the deep sea, but those on land are noteworthy and dangerous.
What caused the San Andreas Fault?
The San Andreas Fault was created because of the strike and slipping motions of the North American moving in the south direction and Pacific Ocean moving in the north direction. The San Andreas Fault is commonly known as a transform fault.
What does the San Andreas fault even do?
The San Andreas Fault is the foremost of a set of faults along the boundary between the Pacific Plate on the west and the North American Plate on the east. The west side moves north, causing earthquakes with its movement . The forces associated with the fault have pushed up mountains in some places and stretched apart large basins in others.
What would happen to the San Andreas Fault?
Narrator: Parts of the San Andreas Fault intersect with 39 gas and oil pipelines. This could rupture high-pressure gas lines, releasing gas into the air and igniting potentially deadly explosions . Stewart: So, if you have natural-gas lines that rupture, that’s how you can get fire and explosions.