[skeeter]

The San Andreas is notorious for producing big ones, but a magnitude-9 or larger is virtually impossible because the fault is not long or deep enough, Hough noted.

I've always been told that the western side of the San Andreas fault belonged to the pacific plate, while the east is part of the continental plate.

That sounds pretty deep and long to me.

[AnAmericanAbroad]

No doubt, the San Andreas can produce some pretty big shakers, but there’s other faults directly under Los Angeles that give geologists the heebie-jeebies more than the SA Fault.

The trailer for the movie is pretty over-the-top (to put it mildly) but then again, it’s a disaster movie, and generally, those tend to pretty over-the-top by the very nature.

My personal fave was 1974’s ‘Earthquake’, the one with Charlton Heston, Lorne Greene, George Kennedy and Richard Chamberlain; that was a pretty decent film - melodramatic, mind you - but the visual effects still hold up even now. The scene of the Columbia Records building shearing away if particularly well-done.

I grew up in Los Angeles, so needless to say, that flick made me a little paranoid when it popped up on TV a few years later, LOL.

[ETL]

I've always been told that the western side of the San Andreas fault belonged to the pacific plate, while the east is part of the continental plate. That sounds pretty deep and long to me.

Not nearly as deep as a subduction zone plate interaction, where one plate is being driven under another. In the case of SA, the 2 plates are merely sliding past each other.

[doorgunner69]

I've always been told that the western side of the San Andreas fault belonged to the pacific plate, while the east is part of the continental plate.

You are correct. A fault the runs from the Gulf of Calif to well north of SF is a bit on the long side, with lots of minor faults branching off to make things interesting..