Finding Fault In California: An Earthquake Tourist's Guide

Finding Fault in California: An Earthquake Tourist's Guide

California has plenty of faults–seismic faults, that is. They shear the Golden State into ribbons and have largely crafted California’s geologically rich, diverse, and dynamic landscape. With humor and ease, Finding Fault in California leads the earthquake curious to the state’s most accessible, active, and earth-shaping faults and tells the stories behind the major temblors that have shaken the region.The book begins with a discussion about what faults are and how to recognize them. Geologic tours follow, exploring the seismic hazards of the Los Angeles Basin, the San Francisco Bay Area, central California, the Mojave Desert, and the Owens Valley. Amateur fault finders can view such features as a seismically dissected hill in the Mojave Desert, a neighborhood that is slowly being wrenched in two by the creeping Calaveras fault, and the now-landscaped surface rupture from the 1971 San Fernando quake in a McDonald’s parking lot. Photos, maps, diagrams(most with precise GPS coordinates), illustrate the conversational text.