This latest warning was revealed by an earthquake expert at the National Earthquake Conference in Long Beach, Calif., on Wednesday, reports CBS Los Angeles.
Saying the San Andreas fault was “locked, loaded and ready to roll,” seismologist Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, cited the fact that the portion of the fault that extends into the southern part of the state has not seen a major earthquake since 1857.
Jordan says this leaves the fault, the state’s longest and most dangerous, long overdue for an earthquake that could potentially reach a magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale.
“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 conference’s opening address, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A section of the fault further southeast in San Bernardino County has not moved since 1812 and, even further southeast toward the Salton Sea, has been relatively quiet since the 1680s. With the long period of inactivity, Jordan said it was important that the state focus on the possibility of a large earthquake in Southern California, possibly a magnitude 8.0, reports CNBC.
The problem is with the tectonic plates in the region, Jordan said.
Over time, it has been observed that based on the movement of the tectonic plates, with the Pacific plate moving northeast of the North American plate, about every 100 years an earthquake should be relieving the stress for every 16 feet of accumulated plate movement. But that has not happened for well over 100 years.
To give people an idea of how strong an 8.0 earthquake could be, a U.S. Geological Survey report warned that a 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern San Andreas Fault could cause over 1,800 deaths, 50,000 injuries and around $200 billion in property damage. And that doesn’t include an assessment of the long-lasting disruptions to infrastructure.
The initial shaking in an 8.0 magnitude quake could last a full two-minutes, Jordan said. Computer simulations have indicated that damage could extend into downtown Los Angeles and as far away as the border with Mexico, depending on where the rupture was located.
“We are fortunate that seismic activity in California has been relatively low over the past century,” Jordan said last year, according to Newser. “But we know that tectonic forces are continually tightening the springs … making big quakes inevitable.”
