Newly Discovered Fault Under L.A.

Randolpho writes "Whether you like the city or not, you can't say Los Angeles doesn't have a fault. It does, and it's one of earth-shattering proportions. Geologists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline, which they're calling the Puente Hills Blind Thrust System; it runs from northern Orange County through Los Angeles on up to Beverly Hills, and has a habbit of ripping earthquakes as large as 7.5 on the Richter Scale every 10 thousand years or so. And the last one was about 8 thousand years ago."

Comments

Horror storys!

[Neophytus]

We are always told every few months the earth is overdue a major earthquake, eruption, ice collapse, comet or other worldwide catastrophy. If it happens it will happen, but for now I'm happy where I am away from any of them.

Puente Hills has a mall that was shown in BTTF...

[antdude]

FYI. The Twin Pines Mall (name replaced Puente Hills Mall), in the first movie of Back to the Future Trilogy, is located in this area.

You can see photographs and information here and here.

A silly article

[Safety Cap]

The only thing of note is that this puts to rest the thought that blind thrust faults cannot exist (which is kind of stupid, if you think about it).

The article names one of the thousands of faults in the LA basin, and probably one or the 10 or so that could cause serious damage.

The Newport-Inglewood fault is also another one that you don't hear about (for you Los Angelinos, it runs right under the 405 and up through Westwood - go Bruins!), but it has as much potential to cause damage as any other.

What is interesting is that they were able to accurately measure the folded sandstone (anyone know what units? It's too deep to be QAL) clearly enough at depth.

The rate of earthquakes on the west coast is high - you'll see a 2 on the Richter every few days, but you won't notice it.

Seeing as how the San Andreas last popped near Ft. Tejon in the mid 1800s, that is the one that would scare me: it moved about 30' back then. With the #$(#@ government allowing developers to build on top of the fault zone, some poor schlubs are going to find the remains of their living room 30 feet away from the remains of the rest of their home. Or rubble.

Just make sure your earthquake kit is up-to-date and don't sweat it. It could be worse: it could be Seattle (an earthquate caused by Juan de Fuca plate movement could cause a Tsunami AND erupt that little ol' volcano they have just outside the city). Do'o.

Life imitates "art"

[Fjord]

Like or hate hollywood megamovies, Volcano was based on the premis of an undiscovered fault line having a molten eruption. Very good insight on what actually could happen given this (but still a movie). Plus it has Tommy Lee Jones.

Re:Technical errors?

[dacarr]

You know, I do concur - the path described is similar to the Whittier narrows fault, which runs through Chino Hills and Yorba Linda on its way to LA. Perhaps they're seeing offshoots of WN?