Earthquake expert warns San Andreas Fault is'locked, loaded and ready to roll | Emergency Preparedness

Earthquake expert warns San Andreas Fault is'locked, loaded and ready to roll

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5 May ’16 - 9:37 am

They have been saying this for decades, hope they are wrong

Long Beach: Southern California's section of the San Andreas Fault is primed for a major earthquake a leading earthquake scientist has told the National Earthquake Conference.

The San Andreas Fault is one of California's most dangerous, and is the state's longest fault. Yet for Southern California, the last big earthquake to strike the southern San Andreas was in 1857, when a magnitude 7.9 earthquake ruptured an astonishing 300 kilometres between Monterey County and the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles.

It has been quiet since then - too quiet, said Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Centre.

The simulated shaking from a possible magnitude-8 earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

"The springs on the San Andreas system have been wound very, very tight. And the southern San Andreas fault, in particular, looks like it's locked, loaded and ready to go," Jordan said in the opening keynote talk.

Other sections of the San Andreas Fault also are overdue for a big quake. Further southeast of the Cajon Pass, such as in San Bernardino County, the fault has not moved substantially since an earthquake in 1812, and further southeast toward the Salton Sea, it has been relatively quiet since the late 1600s.

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6 May ’16 - 9:34 am

USGS is saying the likelihood of an 8 plus has gone up

Scientists are virtually certain that California will be rocked by a strong earthquake in the next 30 years. Now they say the risk of a mega-quake is more likely than previously thought.

The chance of a magnitude-8 quake striking the state in the next three decades jumped to 7 percent from 4.7 percent, mainly because scientists took into account the possibility that several faults can shake at once, releasing seismic energy that results in greater destruction.

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