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Essay On San Andreas Fault

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Essay On San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a fault that goes about 800 miles through California. The fault is named after the San Andreas Lake which is a lake that formed in the middle of the Fault. A fault is a break in the earth's surface where two tectonic plates meet. The San Andreas Fault forms the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The San Andreas
Fault is the most famous fault in the world. It is about ten miles deep.

The San Andreas Fault caused the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. It is a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that measures XI on the Mercalli scale. The earthquake killed over 3,000 people, and about 80% of San Francisco was destroyed. The San Andreas Fault moves just over an inch a year, a foot each decade. The San Andreas
…show more content…
For many years, The San Andreas Fault has been building up a large amount of pressure, and when it builds up too much pressure it will quickly release it making the North American Plate and The Pacific Plate slide past each other creating a large earthquake. A study from 2009 by the USGS shows that a magnitude 7.8 earthquake from the San Andreas can cause about 1,800 deaths and about 213 billion dollars in damage to California’s west coast.

Large earthquakes that have been caused by the San Andreas are: The 1857 Fort Tejon
Earthquake which was a magnitude 7.9, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake which was a magnitude 7.8, the 1957 San Francisco Earthquake which was a magnitude 5.7, the 2004
Parkfield Earthquake that was a magnitude 6.0 and the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake which was a magnitude 6.9, this earthquake postponed the Baseball 1989 world series.The San Andreas
Fault runs through many populated areas like San Bernardino or Wrightwood. It is easy to see how the fault moves by looking at how fences that are pulled apart, cracks in sidewalks and many other deformations in the ground near the San Andreas Fault. Lakes and streams along

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