Posted on 08/20/2026 8:14:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Most of our attention here at Hot Air is devoted to politics and cultural issues, but I came across some stories this week that have me worried about something else: Earthquakes.
I've been living here since 1997 and in that time I've experienced at least half a dozen earthquakes. Most of them are small. Maybe your chair rocks in place a little bit. It's unnerving, partly because you don't know how long it will last or if what you're feeling will suddenly get a lot worse.
I've only experienced two earthquakes that I'd describe as scary. The worst one happened sometime around 1999. I was upstairs in the townhouse I owned at the time and the entire thing started to rock violently back and forth, hard enough that I could see the walls bending and hear them creaking. For a moment it genuinely felt like the floor might just break apart and dump me down a long way. And then it was over.
So that's probably why I notice stories like this one saying that the slip rate of the San Andreas fault is faster than previously estimated.
The speed at which the Santa Cruz Mountains portion of the northern San Andreas Fault moves — also known as the fault’s slip rate — is faster than earlier estimates suggested, according to research by San Jose State University professor Kim Blisniuk, an earthquake geologist. Faster faults generally have more frequent earthquakes than equivalent slower-moving faults.
Previous research into slip rates in the area spanned a time period of up to 1,000 years, according to Blisniuk. Her study — which is not yet published, though she hopes to present the findings at a conference in October — stretched over the last 10,000 years.
Scientists previously theorized that the slip rate of the northern San Andreas would slow down further south along the fault, with one hypothesis being that “slip is then being transferred onto other faults” along the way, such as the Calaveras or Hayward faults, Blisniuk said. But her research found that the slip rate — and therefore the likelihood of an earthquake — did not decrease but actually stayed the same from the North Coast section to the Santa Cruz Mountains section.
The story is careful to point out that while this makes future earthquakes along the fault more likely, it doesn't necessarily mean they will be more powerful. That depends on how deep the eventual quake happens and how powerful it is cannot be estimated by the slip rate. So more quakes but not necessarily worse ones.
But there's also this other story I came across which suggests the fault has been relatively quiet for quite a long time. There have been some massive quakes in the past, but nothing at quite that scale since.
There is no simple answer for why California’s longest fault, responsible for some of America’s most powerful earthquakes, has produced so few in the last century.
But it is clear that the quiet period is only increasing strain on the San Andreas, as well as on the state’s second-longest fault, the San Jacinto.
A new study underscores the concern. Researchers estimated that key sections of the fault in Southern California are at their highest level of tectonic strain in the last 1,000 years...
The computer model “found that tectonic stress has now reached higher levels than at any point in that entire record. From the model, we see that the conditions that historically preceded large joint ruptures crossing both fault systems are now approaching,” said Liliane Burkhard, the lead author of the study and a scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland and the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii.
In 1857, a 7.9 earthquake located near Bakersfield is still considered a "Big One." Almost no one was killed, mostly because it was relatively isolated and there weren't many people in the area. But obviously if we had something like that today near a major city the outcome would be very different.
In 1924, a 7.9 quake hit San Francisco. It destroyed 80 percent of the city and killed 3,000 people at a time when the total population of the city was about 400,000. The current population is now double that and there are a lot more tall buildings.
What's coming could be on that scale. By contrast the last big earthquake most people remember is the Northridge quake in 1994, which was relatively limited.
The computer model “found that tectonic stress has now reached higher levels than at any point in that entire record. From the model, we see that the conditions that historically preceded large joint ruptures crossing both fault systems are now approaching,” said Liliane Burkhard, the lead author of the study and a scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland and the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii.
The last major temblor to strike urban Southern California, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake of 1994, resulted in severe damage and the deaths of about 60 people. But it was also mostly limited to a relatively small area of Los Angeles County.
So if you're not here, you have nothing to worry about but if you are here you find yourself wondering occasionally when the next one will happen and how big it will be.
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I think he’s referring to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, not a 1924 quake.
Note the typo: the Great Earthquake was in 1904, not 1924
My favorite earthquake story: I attended Santa Clara University . I worked graveyard at 7-11. Bored as hell around 3 am. I went out to sweep the parking lot. Though it’s in the middle of the city, it was dead quiet. I heard an earthquake coming, like a distant train. It was baby, maybe 3.0-3.5, and never got terribly loud. I felt the wave moving through the earth under my feet, then heard it roll away. Seriously cool experience, and I doubt there’s more than a handful of people who have had it
Doh! You beat me with the correction, and your correction is right and mine is wrong
Yes I’ve heard the fire damage in 1906 was quite severe.
During the 1933 Long Beach Quake, an unnerved gentleman ran out of his house completely nude. When a neighbor called his attention to his immodest appearance, he ran back inside and then reappeared a moment later, wearing only his top-hat.
I think that an earthquake is preferable to a tornado bearing down on your house or barn. NOWHERE to hide from a tornado.
One can easily survive TONS of small quakes but a tornado??? I dunno.
If the tornado takes me to OZ--then BRING IT ON!
If it's a MAJOR earthquake then you are in INDONESIA.
True. At the time of the centennial I lived in Auburn. The coast range is 15-20 miles east of San Francisco, 70 or 80 miles across the valley, then Auburn is at 1,000 feet in the Sierra Foothill. Of course all the cities between the two places were just villages or small towns in those days—- no light pollution. They reran an article in the local paper from the time of the quake. There, 100
Miles away, they could see the glow in the sky from the San Francisco burning.
MOST of the damage in the 1906 quake in San Francisco was from the FIRE that followed the quake.
Plus, the quake also ruined all the water and power lines, so there was no power to operate the pumps, and no water to pump
Must have been Hell-on-Earth for anyone who couldn’t get out
“San Francisco,” my favorite disaster movie, and also a great musical, is about the 1906 shaker.
My understanding is that the Hayward Fault will go first.
The Santa Barbara Earthquake--Vernon Dalhart (1925)
I was living in Long Beach in 1987 when the Whittier Narrows quake struck. I was pregnant with my 3rd child & hid under my roll top desk. I truly thought it was the Big One I’d been hearing about for 25 yrs.
Then we moved to Perris where we experienced our first ever double earthquake in Landers in 1992. I just got done telling my terrified children not to be scared because the quake had already happened when the 2nd one hit.
I slept thru the Northridge quake in 1994 while living in Carlsbad.
We moved to AZ in 1996. Now I have monsoons every summer to look forward to. There’s always something, lol.
Two earthquakes were felt in central coastal California in 1924, but I’m not seeing online that they were especially destructive in San Francisco. It must be some kind of typo.
I've always wondered about living in places that can be called Tornado Alley
I think I would move to the next valley over.
Expect the corrupt and incompetant California state and local governments to multiply the misery from a huge quake by orders of magnitude. The LA fires are a foretaste of what is to come.
The Bay Area has numerous fault lines.
There are fault line maps.
I had to wait hours for a Greyhound bus in Oklahoma City.
The weatherman was describing the tornados.
Oklahoma City has many great basements.
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