California Earthquakes
California is well known for its beautiful scenery including the ocean and the Hollywood stars. It is also well known for being a central location where earthquakes take place. Some researchers predict California may one day fall into the ocean as a result of earthquakes or simply separate from the rest of the United States just like the islands of Hawaii.
The first ever recorded earthquake in the world took place in California during 1769. It was documented by a group of explorers who were in the Los Angeles area. While they didn’t call it an earthquake, they described the feelings and the results in great detail.
Mark Twain wrote about his experience in an earthquake that took place in San Francisco during 1865. He wrote about the earth cracking in lines across streets and through entire buildings. He described the rubble and the people fleeing in a panic.
The earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco was a major catastrophe, with a fault line of more than 250 miles. Most of the damage resulted from a fire that burned most of San Francisco. The studies conducted of this particular earthquake helped researchers and scientists learn a great deal about earthquakes. This knowledge led to the design of instruments that enabled them to predict future earthquakes.
More than 10,000 earthquakes hit California each year. Most of them are very low scale, most of them can’t even be felt. They are only picked up by the earthquake tracking equipment that is in place. It is believed California is susceptible to earthquakes because of a weakness in the underground crust of the California terrain. This theory, known as the Elastic Rebound Theory, clearly indicated California is in danger because the theory views California as a rubber band that will break once it has been stretched once too many times.
Scientists and researchers are clearly worried about California and continue to look of ways to reduce further earthquakes from happening. They also continue to monitor the Earth in that area so that they can accurately predict future earthquakes. This is necessary to protect the people of California as much as they possibly can.
The most recent earthquake in California occurred on January 27, 2007 about 8:30 am. It hit the area of San Jacinto, California. This was a very mild earthquake with some earth shaking tremors reported, but no severe damage or injuries.
