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Earthquake Areas
Name: Bal
Status: Other
Age: 50s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
Found your site to be very interesting. Since most of
California is prone to earthquakes, your statement that San Diego is
relatively safe for earhquakes is very interesting because we are
thinking of moving to San Diego. Are there any areas San Diego that are
less or more prone to earthquakes. For our work it is kind of important
that the place be rather free of earthquakes.
Replies:
The San Andreas Fault runs from San Francisco southeast to the Imperial
Valley, where it fragments into a number of small faults. San Diego is not
very close to the San Andreas Fault, and any earthquakes originating in the
Imperial Valley will not transmit their energy to the San Diego area very
effectively, as the ground is already so fractured.
That said, the San Diego area is still more prone to earthquakes than other
areas in the US away from the West Coast. In fact, the original adobe
buildings of the first Spanish settlement in California, the Mission San
Diego Del Alcala in what is now San Diego, were destroyed by an earthquake
only a few years after they were constructed. So even though San Diego is
not as earthquake-prone as Los Angeles or San Francisco, it's not as stable
as Albany, either.
Richard E. Barrans Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Director
PG Research Foundation, Darien, Illinois
I recommend you visit the website of the National Earthquake Information
Center:
http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/
There are numerous links about earthquakes past and present everywhere in
the world, including California. There are also seismic activity maps.
Then you can make your own decision about the risk of earthquakes in the San
Diego area. I'm no seismologist, but I wouldn't build any high towers in the
area!
Vince Calder
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Update: June 2012
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