The San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault

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The San Andreas fault

A transform Fault is a type of fault in which to tectonic plates slide past one another. A transform fault may occur in the portion of a fracture zone that exists between different offset spreading centers, it connects spreading centers to deep-sea trenches in subduction zones. Transform faults are the only segments of fractures zones that are seismically active.

ceanic ridges offset by transform faults and fracture zones. The arrows show the direction of movement across the transform faults.

The San Andreas Fault is the sliding Boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. It slices California in two from Cape Mendocino to the Mexican border. San Diego, Los Angeles and Big Sur are on the Pacific Plate. San Francisco, Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada are on the North American Plate. San Andreas Fault does not go through the city. But communities like Desert Hot Springs, San Bernardino, Wrightwood, Palmdale, Gorman, Frazier Park, Daly City, Point Reyes Station and Bodega Bay lie squarely on the fault and are in danger. The San Andreas Fault is a transform fault, the plates can move one another at a couple of inches a year, about the same rate that your fingernails grow. In this case the plates can not move because their are pushing against one another.

On 12 January 2010 a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Republic of Haiti. According to the government of Haiti, the earthquake left more than 316,000 dead or missing, 300,000 injured, and over 1.3 million homeless. The Republic of Haiti occupies the western third 27,750 km^2 of the island of Hispaniola located on the northeast Caribbean between Puerto Rico to the east and Jamaica and Cuba to the west and had a population of approximately 9.6 million prior to the earthquake.

In El Paso TX has a population of 683,080. Losing 316,000 thousand of people in an earthquake it would be more than half of the population. In Texas largest historical earthquakes have had magnitudes of about M6, Texas has suffered much less earthquake damage than many others U.S states.

References

https://escweb.wr.usgs.gov/share/mooney/142.pdf