[John H K]

Word is that movie is going to be legendary for scientific inaccuracy (and that's a high standard for all disaster movies). Basically pure garbage. Producers apparently didn't even pretend to get a science advisor, did their "research" on the internet.

It's literally physically impossible to have a 10.5 quake in California, or anywhere else for that matter.

[Eala]

It's literally physically impossible to have a 10.5 quake in California, or anywhere else for that matter.

What's the limit? In the Seattle area we keep hearing that we're due for one around 9 on the Richter scale sometime in the next couple hundred ye

[Conservative4Ever]

It's literally physically impossible to have a 10.5 quake in California, or anywhere else for that matter.

Geez...I hope you are correct.

Red

[boris]

"It's literally physically impossible to have a 10.5 quake in California, or anywhere else for that matter."

I am not a geologist but my understanding is that the scale is 'open ended'. Yes it is logarithmic but 'impossible'? I'd like proof. For example: if a five-mile-wide asteroid hit outside L.A. do you think a 10.5 reading might be recorded?

If I recall correctly, there have been massive events (100,000 years ago) which may have reached a much larger magnitude than the biggest we can imagine.

How large was the New Madrid quake?

What was the 'richter' magnitude of the Deccan Steps event, or the last time the Ring of Fire went off all at once?...

I do recall seeing somewhere that 14 would mean planetary disintegration...don't know if so.

--Boris

[xp38]

Nigel: ...the numbers all go to eleven. Look...right across the board.
Marty: Ahh...oh, I see....
Nigel: Eleven...eleven...eleven....
Marty: And most of these amps go up to ten.
Nigel: Exactly.
Marty: Does that mean it's...louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it?
Nigel: ...One louder.
Marty: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
[pause]
Nigel: These go to eleven.

[RussianConservative]

I read on internet of this movie...and sure it will be to Russian television in year or so...as much true American junk comes to Russian television...Zina and Hercuslak and other such truelly dumb shows....anyways, off on tangent...seems they show huge chunk of Cali falling to sea...never mind it is mountainous areas that fall. I have been to San Francisco...ok, I could see area seperating from mainland but sinking? Haha. Oh and seen some US airplane crash movies and one of island with volcano going and peoples trying to survive giant flying lava balls...must say, just like dumb asteroid movie with Bruce Willis...both volcano and asteroid had very good aim.

[capitan_refugio]

The original Richter scale was logrithmic. Since crustal rocks are incapable of storing enough energy to release a "10.5" earthquake, the only way you could get such a seismic event would be from an asteroid impact.

[capitan_refugio]

Let me add, however, there has been legitimate talk about a "mega-quake" in California. The scenario is this:

There are three main segments of the San Andreas fault. The northern segment which runs from the Mendocino Fracture zone south to about Parkfield last had a great quake in 1906. The "Big Bend" segment which runs from Parkfield south to the vicinity of the El Cajon Pass near San Bernadino moved in the 1857 Fort Tejon quake. The southern section of the San Andreas bifurcates and trends down into the reminent spreading center in the Gulf of California. (Some researchers believe that the plate boundary there is "jumping" westward in an attempt to "straighten out" the Big Bend caused by the collision of the Pacific plate with the North American plate.)

Each of the three major segments of the fault seems to operate separately from the others - which is to say, no two have ever ruptured together. There is good reason to believe that any earthquake on the San Andreas would have a finite limit of shaking (3 to 5 minutes based on past experience) and the length of the rupture.

The mega-quake would involve one segment triggering a sympathetic quake on a neighboring segments or segments! The shaking amplitude would not be higher than one would expect in a solitary great quake, but the duration of shaking could be considerably longer.