Dragos Mitrica reports that it is not just the San Andreas fault, a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research indicates that there are several other long faults off the U.S. West coast that can cause significant earthquakes, as well as tsunamis, specifically offshore southern California producing greater then magnitude 7 quakes.
Geologists criticized the big-budget San Andreas movie for having little good geoscience behind it. But that does not mean that California is not threatened by seismic activity. They acknowledge that the San Andreas area is way overdue for a major earthquake, and when it comes it may be big. The geophysical surveys of the region show a complicated logjam of faults produced by the movement of the Pacific Plate, sliding in relative motion under the North American Plate.
What they were searching for are signs that indicate how much the faults have slipped over time and whether some of that slippage caused some of the seafloor to thrust upwards, which causes tsunami as well.
Even if only a 2-meter tsunami is generated, it could cause massive damage along the west coast, especially in the low-lying LA area.
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