Latest San Andreas Fault Stories

By Andrew Edwards A costly 44-mile pipeline project designed to help carry water from Northern to Southern California will probably break one day. That's not a surprise. The Inland Feeder Project, recently given a share of the spotlight when a technological beast called a tunnel- boring machine breached the surface in Devil Canyon near Cal State San Bernardino, is a major endeavor. But the project, still a work in progress, isn't invulnerable to the San Andreas Fault. No engineer nor...

By Katherine Fischer Hiking up Valley View trail in Big Sur's National Park, I feel the usual breeze streaming across my face down from the Santa Lucia mountains. But this time, however, instead of California wild flowers, Redwood leaves and, yes, even pollen, this breeze brings only ash.The higher I climb, the harder I cough.This week, 2,095 fires are finally contained in California. The trees of the forest bear the scars of fires ignited by lightning back in June.While nature's fires...

By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell Gary Arce is a firm believer that being forewarned is being forearmed, especially when it comes to earthquakes. So every year, the geology instructor takes students on tours of portions of the San Andreas Fault. It runs roughly 800 miles through California. "My main goal in leading tours is to educate people, dispel myths about earthquakes and encourage them to prepare," he said. Arce's next tour of a portion of the fault, from San Bernardino to Palmdale,...

A linear string of mud pots and mud volcanoes suggest surface evidence for a southern extension of the San Andreas Fault that runs through the Salton Sea, according to a paper published in the August issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA).Researchers David K. Lynch and Kenneth W. Hudnut of USGS report the results of a comprehensive survey of mud pots in the area immediately east of the southeastern-most portion of the Salton Sea in Imperial County, Calif. Using...

Scientists say they have discovered the ability to predict an earthquake hours before it strikes simply by studying changes in rocks.The study, published in the journal Nature on Thursday, said the observations used sensors that were lowered into holes previously drilled in an earthquake zone. U.S. researchers found stress-induced changes in rocks hours before two small sized tremors ran through the San Andreas Fault in California. Paul Silver of the Carnegie Institution for Science...

Scientists released a report today describing the impact of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurring along Southern California's San Andreas Fault.Although imaginary, the Shakeout Scenario is based on scientists' best predictions of what would actually occur during and after a major earthquake along the fault, and paints a grim picture of loss of life and massive infrastructure damage, including critical transportation, power, and water systems.  A team of about 300 scientists, first...

A newly identified fault that runs under the Adriatic Sea is actively building more of the famously beautiful Dalmatian Islands and Dinaride Mountains of Croatia, according to a new research report.Geologists had previously believed that the Dalmatian Islands and the Dinaride Mountains had stopped growing 20 to 30 million years ago.From a region northwest of Dubrovnik, the new fault runs northwest at least 200 km (124 miles) under the sea floor. The Croatian coast and the 1,185 Dalmatian...

By Deena Beasley and Jeremy Lovell LOS ANGELES/LONDON (Reuters) - The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has not had a major rupture for more than 300 years, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake, a new study said on Wednesday. But exactly when that quake will take place cannot be predicted, the scientist who conducted the study published in the British journal Nature said in an interview with Reuters. "The fault is accumulating...

By Jeremy Lovell LONDON (Reuters) - The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has been still for more than two centuries, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake at any moment, a scientist said on Wednesday. Yuri Fialko, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California, said that given average annual movement rates in other areas of the fault, there could be enough pent-up energy in the southern end to trigger a...

By Jeremy LovellLONDON (Reuters) - The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has been still for more than two centuries, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake at any moment, a scientist said on Wednesday.Yuri Fialko, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California, said that given average annual movement rates in other areas of the fault, there could be enough pent-up energy in the southern end to trigger a cataclysmic jolt...