San Andreas Fault

Early years
The fault was first identified in Northern California by UC Berkeley geology
professor Andrew Lawson in 1895 and named by him after the Laguna de San Andreas, a
small lake which lies in a linear valley formed by the fault just south of San Francisco.
Eleven years later, Lawson discovered that the San Andreas Fault stretched southward
into southern California after reviewing the effects of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
Large-scale (hundreds of miles) lateral movement along the fault was first proposed in a
1953 paper by geologists Mason Hill and Thomas Dibblee. This idea, which was
considered radical at the time, has since been vindicated by modern plate tectonics.

History
The San Andreas fault is about 28 million years old. Back then, California didn't exist, at
least not recognizably so. Bits and pieces could be found scattered around the western
edge of North American, which at the time ended at the Pacific ocean lapping the shores
of central Utah and Arizona. Other parts were volcanic islands in the eastern Pacific. Most
of what was to become California was either under the ocean or still being created
beneath western North America. Thirty millions years ago seems like a long time but
in geological time, it is like 'yesterday', being less than 1% of the age of the Earth (4.6
billion years).
Like all land forms and topographic features, California's are much younger than the rock
from which they are made. As a mountain range, the Sierras are less than five million
years old, even though some of their granite and diorite solidified deep underground about
115 million years ago. The most recent uplift of the mountains began about 4 million years
ago and continues today.
The SAF was born when the Pacific Plate first touched the North American Plate. Before
this time the Farallon Plate was subducting under North America, and most of it is now
scraping along the bottom of the NA plate, ultimately to descend into the mantle, melt and
be recycled. Pieces of the Farallon Plate are still around as the Juan de Fuca, Cocos and
Rivera plates. The boundary between the Pacific and Farallon plates is called the East
Pacific Rise (EPR). The EPR still exists as a series of transform faults and spreading
centers that run the length of the Sea of Cortez; indeed, it was the EPR the split Baja from
mainland Mexico.
Like countless others, Alfred Wegener noticed that the west coast of Europe and Africa
had more-or-less the same shape as eastern North and South America. It was as though
they were once together and had been pulled apart, the gap being filled by the Atlantic
Ocean. Though trained as an astronomer and working as a meteorologist, Wegener visited

the Atlantic shores

and found

that

rocks and

fossils on

one side of

the

ocean matched those on the other side. Wegener proposed that the continents were
drifting apart. He was roundly damned by geologists as an outsider and ignored. But the
idea took root and evidence of shifting continents slowly accumulated. Of particular note
was the discovery of alternating magnetic field alignments in sea floor rocks near what are
now called spreading centers, like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In 1960, Harry Hess and Robert
Dietz put the pieces together and showed that Wegener was right, placing the idea of plate
tectonics on firm ground. Hess's (and others) unifying work proved to be one of the most
important concepts in geology because it explained so many things: sea floor spreading,
mountain building, the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes and how they are related,
fault

motions

and

much

more.

The San Andreas Fault received its name from Andrew Lawson after the 1906 earthquake.
He named it for San Andreas Lake, a (now) man-modified sag pond in San Mateo county
through which the fault passes. The lake was named by Gaspar de Portola in 1769 who
camped

near

the

(then)

small

body

of

water

(See

etymology

link

below).

The earliest documented record of an earthquake comes from China, in 1831 BC from the
Shandong province. The most complete historical records also come from China, starting
in 780 BC during the Zhou Dynasty in China.

Strike-slip faults occur where two blocks of earth move horizontally past one another. Notice how
movement along the fault caused an offset fence and a bend in the river on the
surface.

Things You May Not Know

San Andreas Fault

Where? The San Andreas Fault is 810 miles and it is in
California. The San Andreas fault caused the San Francisco

earthquake in 1906. This earth quake was a 7.7 up to a 8.25 strong. The
earthquake was one of the biggest that scientist had ever seen. Interesting factsThe earthquake killed about 500 people and people lost over 200,000,000 dollars
in property. 300,000 people were left homeless. The two continental plates that
caused this earthquake were the Pacific plate and the North American Plate.
How? This earthquake happened when these two plate slide and stuck together
and then the earth quake started by pressure. Some scientists say that this
earthquake was most like the more recent hurricane Katrina.
Earthquakes Along the Fault
Literally thousands of small earthquakes occur in California each year, providing
scientists with clear indications of places where faults cut the Earth's crust. The
largest historical earthquakes that occurred along the San Andreas fault were
those in 1857 and 1906. The earthquake of January 9, 1857, in southern California
apparently was about the same magnitude as the San Francisco earthquake of
1906. According to newspaper accounts, ground movement in both cases was
roughly the same type. An account of the 1857 earthquake describes a sheep
corral cut by the fault that was changed from a circle to an "S"-shape--movement
clearly representative of right-lateral strike-slip. Studies of offset stream channels
indicate that as much as 29 feet of movement occurred in 1857.
The San Francisco earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906, took about 700 lives and
caused millions of dollars worth of damage in California from Eureka southward to
Salinas and beyond. The earthquake was felt as far away as Oregon and central
Nevada. The 1906 earthquake, which has been estimated at a magnitude 8.3 on
the Richter Scale, caused intensities as high as XI on the Modified Mercalli Scale.
Surface offsets occurred along a 250- mile length of the fault from San Juan
Bautista north past Point Arena and offshore to Cape Mendocino.
On May 18, 1940, an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 occurred along a previously
unrecognized fault in the Imperial Valley. Similar movement on the Imperial fault
occurred during an earthquake in November 1979. The greatest surface
displacement was 17 feet of right-lateral strike-slip in the 1940 earthquake. Clearly,
this fault is part of the San Andreas system. Other earthquakes of probable
magnitudes of 7 or larger occurred on the Hayward fault in 1836 and 1868 and on
the San Andreas fault in 1838.

The San Francisco

Earthquake of 1906
The Great San Francisco Earthquake was the stuff of legendbut it really
happened. A vibrant city saddled with a corrupt government was laid low by a
colossal earthquake and subsequent fire. Rising from the ruins a brand-new
gleaming metropolis quickly regained its feet as the people, united, led by publicminded men of wealth, set San Francisco on a path to glory. And the legacy of that
fateful time extends to this day.
The Mainshock and Fires
The mainshock began on the San Andreas fault off the coast near San Francisco at
5:12 in the morning of 18 April 1906. Many years later, researchers assigned it a
magnitude of 7.8 or so. Violent shaking went on for some 60 seconds. The rupture
extended far to the north and south, 430 kilometers in all. Parts of the fault were
offset by as much as 6 meters. By day's end and dozens of aftershocks later, much
of San Francisco was a shambles and large fires had broken out, threatening the
rest.
The fires burned for three more days as water supplies, damaged by ground
movement, were reduced to a trickle. Even now, true San Franciscans call the
debacle of 1906 the Great Earthquake and Fire, but in fact fires are part and parcel
of any large earthquake.Separating the calamity into two lesser calamities is one
way for people to take it in stride.In this case, both the public and the authorities did
their best to downplay, deny and refuse to learn from the earthquake while taking
pride in their ability to bounce back afterward.

There are three main types of faults, based on how adjacent blocks of rock move relative to each other. The
San Andreas Faultmade infamous by the 1906 San Francisco earthquakeis a strike-slip fault. This means
two fault blocks are moving past each other horizontally. Strike-slip faults tend to occur along the boundaries of
plates that are sliding past each other. This is the case for the San Andreas, which runs along the boundary of
the Pacific and North American plates. After a quake along a strike-slip fault, railroad tracks and fences can
show bends and shifts. And, of course, the motion can cause bridges and buildings to collapse.

By studying the 1906 earthquake, scientists learned that this ability of rock to stretch and store energy like a
spring is what enables earthquakes to happen. Earthquakes are now explained by the elastic rebound theory,
which goes something like this: Stress is applied to rock or to an existing fault over a period of time. This
usually happens at a plate boundary where two plates are moving in different directions, or in the same
direction at different speeds. As the stress builds, strong rock or a locked fault (a fault where the two sides are
held together by friction) deform elastically. Eventually, the stress overcomes the rock's strength or the fault's
friction, and either the rock fractures or the fault slips. The energy that's released sets an earthquake in motion.
The rock or fault rebounds, and the process may begin again.

LEARNING FROM THE 1906 QUAKE

Until that time, earthquakes had only been considered a nuisance in the Pacific region. However, the 1906
event sparked the birth of earthquake science in the United States. The first government sponsored scientific
investigations into earthquakes were launched. Scientists explored theories and made measurements and
observations.
A basic understanding of quake mechanism resulted. Earthquakes were identified as caused by faults and
movement of the earths crust, rather than other way around. A continuing earthquake research program has
identified the location of faults and potential earthquake zones, the probabilities of quakes occurring and even
makes predictions of the strength of potential quakes. Such useful information has resulted in significant
changes to building codes that will, for example, reduce the impact of future events.