This past year, California residents have endured some of the most unpredictable weather in the state’s history, namely the cool summer and in September, the 113 degree temperature that broke an all-time high of 112.
Experts predict that a massive earthquake is on the horizon for the Golden State. The Los Angeles Times reports, “Recent research showing that a section of the fault is long overdue for a major earthquake has some scientists saying the southern portion of the fault is capable of a magnitude 8.1 earthquake that could run 340 miles from Monterey County to the Salton Sea.”
The last reported big earthquake ripped through the San Andreas Fault in 1857. It registered an estimated 7.9 on the Richter scale and ruptured over 200 miles of land between Monterey and San Bernardino County.
Minor earthquakes occur constantly in California. Since the San Andreas Fault hasn’t had a serious quake in more than a century, experts surmise that the stress is building and it could suddenly snap.
The Onion reports that the “thrust faults,” which are highly unstable faults that were discovered underneath downtown Los Angeles, in Hollywood and Elysian Park — where Dodger Stadium is located — “… are considered more destructive because they move diagonally and vertically, thrusting masses of earth up and down and folding enormous sections underneath the surface itself.”
Talk of the big one has been going on for decades, here’s hoping the experts are wrong. –marqueta smith
