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Newly Discovered Fault Under L.A.

Posted by michael on from the here-i-sit-on-the-head-of-mount-tam dept.

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."

14 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. La has a Fault? by BuckaBooBob · · Score: 5, Funny

    naa! Can't be :).. I guess Insurance Companies earthquake Periums will go way up in about 1800 years or so.

    --
    Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
  2. I sure picked a fine time to move to LA by anonymous+loser · · Score: 4, Funny

    I just got here, and now you're telling me I'm due for a huge earthquake?

    Well, I suppose on the bright side, if it's true I might be able to afford buying that house after all.

  3. Name already taken? by worst_name_ever · · Score: 4, Funny
    LA was built right over a faultline, which they're calling the Puente Hills Blind Thrust System

    And to think, all this time I thought that was how Hollywood executives mate...

    --

    In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
  4. New fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So in a way, you could say this is a continental segmentation fault?

    8-)

  5. God damn it! by Ciel · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...so you mean to say that we may have 2,000 years left to wait?

    Argh!

    The wheels of justice turn slowly indeed...

  6. What to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not American, but as I understand your legal system, the correct thing to do is sue the scientists, right?

  7. Hollywood by huhmz · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can see a Jerry Bruckheimer production coming

  8. You know you've spent too much time online... by GQuon · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..when you read
    Geologists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline

    as

    Googlists have confirmed that LA was built right over a faultline

    and thinking

    "What? People can make scientific discoveries by searching the internet?"

    I have to go lie down now.

    --
    Irene KHAAAAAAN!
  9. Who is to blame? by paranoos · · Score: 5, Funny

    I blame Los Angeles. It's their own fault, after all.

  10. Puente Hills has a mall that was shown in BTTF... by antdude · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  11. The fault is above ground... by acroyear · · Score: 4, Funny

    You know, by the description here, it sounds like its running exactly under I-405, the Santa Monica freeway, which is already one of the biggest faults LA's ever had...

    --
    "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
    -- Joe
  12. Re:Horror storys! by big_groo · · Score: 4, Funny
    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.

    And you exactly are ... where?

  13. This is silly by mbone · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is silly - if not FUD for grant money.

    The LA basin is about 1 to 30 kilometers of rubble on top of a very active basement of solid rock which is riddled with active faults like a piece of dropped china is riddled with cracks. All of the rubble (alluvium) makes it hard to see active faults as they are buried deep.

    Basically every big earthquake that LA has experienced (with the exception of the large one the San Andreas fault in the 1840's) has been on a previously unknown fault.

    So, earthquakes happen, but our ability to tell exactly where they will be is near nil.

  14. Re:A silly article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    >The only thing of note is that this puts to rest the thought that blind thrust faults cannot exist

    I don't think the existence of blind thrusts has ever been a question. Structural geologists have been quite aware of that type of structure for some time. Indeed, the question isn't even if blind thrusts are a seismic problem -- the Northridge earthquake in 1994 was on a blind thrust. The problem with blind thrusts is that there is no easy way to tell where they are, principally because (by definition) they don't "daylight" i.e. reach the surface. The cool thing about this study is that paleosiesmologists have documented a previoiusly-unknonwn blind thrust fault in an urban area (a major seismic hazard) using well data and geophysics. Not only that, but they mananged to place constraints on it's prior movement history and its recurrence interval. A nice piece of important work.