A 5.0 rippled through the Los Angeles area last night breaking store windows and toppling milk jugs in its wake. And I’m going to the Silicon Valley for a week? Am I crazy? Asks the geologist who made an almost annual pilgrimage to the San Andreas Fault Zone until 2005.
Many on Twitter naturally freaked out last night about the sudden plate movement. It doesn’t happen out of nowhere, though. Earthquake activity along a gigantic, active plate boundary is constant, as the figure above shows, it’s just what you’re able to feel that makes the news. Think of it as a gas-fueled engine – constantly rumbling and chugging along, with the occasional pop when something sticks.
Off to the land of ground rumbling beneath my feet.
Traveling there is a crapshoot. We spent five years bouncing around atop one of the secondary faults Newport-Inglewood) and, while it is a nice place to visit, I would not like to live there anymore.
Due to my in-laws’ proximity to the San Andreas, I am quite fond of reminding them it is all their fault. And they still wonder why we aren’t beating down the borders of the state to move there.
Have fun!