- What type of boundary is the san andreas fault how to#
- What type of boundary is the san andreas fault series#
- What type of boundary is the san andreas fault crack#
The Queen Charlotte Fault (QCF) forms a transpressional plate boundary, and is as active as other major transform fault systems (i.e. The Queen Charlotte Fault forms a triple junction south with the Cascadia subduction zone and the Explorer Ridge (the Queen Charlotte Triple Junction). It is Canada's right-lateral strike-slip equivalent to the San Andreas Fault to the south in California. The Queen Charlotte Fault is an active transform fault that marks the boundary of the North American plate and the Pacific plate. All rights reserved.Tectonic map of Alaska and northwestern Canada showing main faults and historic earthquakes
As it happens, Dave’s house was destroyed in 1994 by the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake.Ĭopyright © 2006 David K. The book contains twelve one-day driving trips along different parts of the fault, and includes mile-by-mile road logs and GPS coordinates for hundreds of fault features. Lynch’s latest book is the Field Guide to the San Andreas Fault. When not hanging around the fault or using the large telescopes on Mauna Kea, he plays fiddle, collects rattlesnakes, gives public lectures on rainbows and writes books ( Color and Light in Nature, Cambridge University Press) and essays. Lynch, PhD, is an astronomer and planetary scientist living in Topanga, CA. All it takes is a good map, a comfortable car and a desire to see the world’s most famous fault.ĭavid K. State and National parks are strung along the fault like beads on a string. There is abundant camping, bird watching, wild flowers and wildlife, rock collecting and natural beauty along the way. They are uncrowded and peaceful, perfect for family outings. With California’s large population and temperate climate, there are many roads that snake along the fault. The San Andreas Fault is more accessible than any other fault in the world. Nor is there any thing such as “earthquake weather” or preferred times of day when earthquakes hit. WRONG! It won’t happen and it can’t happen.
What type of boundary is the san andreas fault crack#
There are many myths and legends about the San Andreas Fault, the biggest being that it will one day crack and California will slide into the sea. Pinnacles National Monument in Monterey County is only half of a volcanic complex, the other part being 200 miles southeast in Los Angeles County and is known as the Neenach Volcanics. The Salinian bock of granite in central and northern California originated in Southern California, and some even say northern Mexico. Being about 28 million years old, rock from great distances have been juxtaposed against rocks from very different locations and origins. The hallmark of the San Andreas Fault is the different rocks on either side of it. In San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties, many of the roads along the fault cut through great mountains of gouge, the powdery, crumbled rock that has been pulverized by the moving plates. In other places, it is more subtle because the fault hasn’t moved in many years and is covered with alluvium, or overgrown with brush.
What type of boundary is the san andreas fault series#
In many places like the Carrizo Plain (San Luis Obispo County) and the Olema Trough (Marin County), the fault is easy to see as a series of scarps and pressure ridges. The breaking rock sends out waves in all directions and it is the waves that we feel as earthquakes.
Suddenly the built-up strain breaks the rock along the fault and the plates slip a few feet all at once. For years the plates will be locked with no movement at all as they push against one another. But this is not a steady motion, it is the average motion. The Pacific Plate is moving northwesterly relative to the North American Plate at a speed of a couple of inches per year - about the same rate that your fingernails grow. The same thing happens with the fault, and the geology and landforms along the mighty rift are extremely complicated. Bits of pepperoni from one side crumble across the boundary onto the anchovy side. Imagine placing two slices of pizza on the table and sliding them past one another where they touch along a common straight edge. The San Andreas Fault is a transform fault. Point Reyes Station and Bodega Bay lie squarely on the fault and are sitting ducks. But communities like Desert Hot Springs, San Bernardino, Wrightwood, Palmdale, Gorman, Frazier Park, Daly City. And despite San Francisco’s legendary 1906 earthquake, the San Andreas Fault does not go through the city. San Francisco, Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada are on the North American Plate. San Diego, Los Angeles and Big Sur are on the Pacific Plate. It slices California in two from Cape Mendocino to the Mexican border.
The San Andreas Fault is the sliding boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.
What type of boundary is the san andreas fault how to#
The San Andreas Fault: What it is, Where to Find it and How to See it.