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On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of the San Andreas Fault System and was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Early studies indicated the earthquake was on the Newport-Inglewood fault, but a later study in 2002 indicated the San Andreas fault was the cause. Other faults have been suggested, but the San Andreas fault is considered the most likely fault. Around 40 people died, and the magnitude ranged from 6.9-7.5. [32]
About half of the San Andreas Fault system's movement has been from the San Felipe fault zone. [4] It has seen 5.8±2.8 km of right separation since its inception. [3] Both the San Jacinto Fault zone and San Felipe fault zones reorganized in the middle to late Pleistocene era and accumulated 600 meters of sediment during uplift and folding. [4]
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The San Andreas Fault (SAF) is the main plate boundary that defines the margin between the Pacific and North American plates in California. It is believed to have formed during the Oligocene. The fault has a length of 1,200 km (750 mi), [1] of which, it is visible for 1,005 km (624 mi) from the Salton Sea to Point Arena. [2]
Southern California's complex rock formations are a result of uplift by the region's active faults. The San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains gained their height from the displacement of brittle granite crust by the San Andreas and the Elsinore Faults. Movement of the Sierra Madre and Raymond Fault have both lifted the northern Los Angeles ...
The region experiences large stand-alone events and earthquake swarms due to its position in an area of complex faulting where it transitions from the strike-slip movement of the San Andreas Fault system to that of the divergent Gulf of California Rift Zone, which is an area of active seafloor spreading.
It is a component of the much bigger San Andreas Fault System, joining the San Andreas Fault with the Imperial Fault Zone via the Brawley seismic zone. The San Andreas Fault is the main plate boundary that defines the margin between the Pacific and North American plates in California. However, the plate boundary is slightly more complex; rather ...