(Photo from: Trulia) In California, when most people think about faults, their thoughts are immediately drawn to the San Andreas, and to a lesser extent, the Hayward Fault. As you returned to your home, you would probably see damaged and collapsed buildings and bridges, broken pipes and snapped power lines and scorched remains of fires. The San Andreas has long been the quake fault California fears the most. Dislocation models of the surface deformation adjacent to the Hayward fault measured with the global positioning system and interferometric synthetic aperture radar favor creep at ∼7 millimeters per year to the bottom of the seismogenic zone along a ∼20-kilometer-long northern fault segment. A paleoseismic study in 2007 at Tyson’s Lagoon (now a BART station) found evidence for 12 paleoearthquakes (including the historical 1868 earthquake) with an average time between earthquakes of about 160 years. Since then, nearly three million people have moved next to the Hayward fault with little regard for its earthquake potential. The recurrence intervals (times between earthquakes) at Wrightwood are more regular than clustered (determined by a mathematical analysis), and only four times in the past has the interval between two major earthquakes been longer than the current interval (since 1857). (Public domain.). Map of faults in southern California. (Credit: Kate Scharer, USGS. Four urban areas of the San Andreas Fault System in Northern California have accumulated a sufficient amount of energy to produce major earthquakes, a new study finds. This fault regularly generates 9.0 temblors similar to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami that killed over 227,000 people in Indonesia and India. Public domain.). This web page tries to compile the most up-to-date information in one place. Observations in the trenches along with radiocarbon dating of charcoal, wood chips, and small plant remains, combined with a reevaluation of three previously-studied nearby paleoseismic sites revealed a variation in seismic activity in the past. The “zone” part of the name means it’s a system with the main fault and many sub-parallel faults that all together take up the motion between the two plates. ...and thank-you to the Facebook poster who gave us the idea for the title! It has an average repeat cycle of 140 years. The Hayward fault under Oakland is more dangerous than the well-known San Andreas fault in Southern California, according to a new study that says it has the potential to kill at least 800 people and injure 18,000 more, The Los Angeles Times reported. At the time, it was known as the 'great San Francisco quake' (this was before the infamous 1906 quake, produced by the San Andreas fault), and it produced massive amounts of damage and several people lost their lives. The USGS also has a webpage that analyzes what will happen if a 7.0 earthquake has its epicenter in Oakland or Fremont. The SAFZ started moving about 28-30 million years ago and has horizontally slipped (transform motion) a total of about 300-350 km (186-220 mi)since it began moving. Many of the sites paleoseismologists have been studying are along key sections of the SAFZ where there is a large population or major infrastructure that would be affected by a large earthquake in the future. Posted April 19, 2018, under Blog. San Francisco Bay and Parkfield that have preinstrumental and modern earthquake epicenters and have towns that can provide felt intensities. The Hayward fault runs through the East Bay hills from Richmond to San Jose. DAMAGE LIKE THIS IS A VERY REAL POSSIBILITY WHEN THE CASCADIA SUBDUCTION ZONE RUPTURES    Courtesy the Daily Mail. In other words, in 11 more years we will have exceeded the historic maximum span of 160 years (U.C. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). The fault divides into three segments, each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk. Over 155,000 housing unites will suffer enough damage to become  uninhabitable  and 350,000 people will be displaced. Many smaller faults branch from and join the San Andreas fault zone. No data point selected. The fault has been creeping about 4.6 mm/yr (0.2 inches/yr) for the last several decades, but that is only half of the long-term slip rate, so stress is building upon this fault. Be sure and click the Map View and watch the videos. The slip rate near the San Andreas fault is … The Hayward Fault is a "tectonic time bomb, due any time for another magnitude 6.8 to 7.0 earthquake," according to a 2008 USGS report. The red line is traced on a fault that offsets the layers. Exposure of the San Andreas Fault in a trench. The faults are boundaries between blocks, and each block is constantly moving, which we can see by analyzing GPS (Global Positioning System) data. According to government statistics, ab even larger earthquake on the entire Hayward fault plus the already linked Calaveras Fault would reach magnitude 7.3. Its last major rupture occurred in 1868, during California's frontier days, and was the original "Great San Francisco Earthquake" until 1906.. Page 75 of The online version of “The Coming Bay Area Earthquake: 2010 Update of Scenario for a Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake on the Hayward Fault published by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute describes the situation vividly. However, the edges of the blocks, the faults themselves, are stuck and only move where there is a large earthquake (some faults creep a little bit, but most are locked). The horizontal colored lines highlight different layers of sediment. In particular, we need to design buildings and infrastructure to be able to withstand the earthquake shaking or be easily repaired. CHART SHOWING THE MAGNITUDE AND DATES OF LARGE EARTHQUAKES IN CALIFORNIA. Four urban areas of the San Andreas Fault System in Northern California have accumulated a sufficient amount of energy to produce major earthquakes, a new study finds. The Hayward Fault Zone is located in northern California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Comparing the data from sites like Wrightwood and Frazier Mountain, earthquake scientists are working to understand the pattern of large earthquakes – asking questions such as how typical was the large (M7.9) earthquake in 1857? The Hayward Fault splinters from the Calaveras Fault, which itself is an offshoot of the What we do know is that California is "earthquake country" and we need to be prepared. 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