MOVEMENT - RISING & SINKING on the San Andreas Fault

'Seismic strain': Land around the San Andreas fault is rising and sinking.
Rong-Gong Lin II
For the first time, scientists have produced a computer image showing huge sections of California rising and sinking around the San Andreas fault. 
The vertical movement is the result of seismic strain that will be ultimately released in a large earthquake.

The San Andreas fault is California’s longest earthquake fault, and one of the state’s most dangerous. Scientists have long expected that parts of California are rising — and other parts sinking — around the fault in a way that is ongoing, very subtle and extremely slow.
Such vertical movement makes a lot of sense. California sits on the border of two gigantic tectonic plates — the Pacific and North American — that are constantly grinding past each other. 
Once there is a major event, all of that energy gets released.— Sam Howell
But actually observing how California’s landscape is rising and falling from seismic strain has been an elusive goal, until now.
In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, scientists found that much of the Los Angeles Basin, Orange County, San Diego County and the Bakersfield area are sinking 2 to 3 millimeters a year — a couple of penny-widths annually. By contrast, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a large portion of San Bernardino County, are rising at the same rate. 
Take a look at the image below. The areas in red are rising, while the areas in blue are sinking.

In this image of Southern California, red areas are rising at a rate of a couple of penny-widths a year, while blue areas are sinking. The area closest to the San Andreas fault — seen in white — is not rising or sinking, and will remain locked until a large earthquake hits.
Sam Howell / University of Hawaii
In this image of Southern California, red areas are rising at a rate of a couple of penny-widths a year, while blue areas are sinking. The area closest to the San Andreas fault — seen in white — is not rising or sinking, and will remain locked until a large earthquake hits.
In this image of Southern California, red areas are rising at a rate of a couple of penny-widths a year, while blue areas are sinking. The area closest to the San Andreas fault — seen in white — is not rising or sinking, and will remain locked until a large earthquake hits. (Sam Howell / University of Hawaii)
The areas closest to the San Andreas fault, however, remain locked in place. When the next big earthquake strikes, the different parts of Southern California will lurch back to the same level.

“Once there is a major event, all of that energy gets released,” said Sam Howell, a doctoral candidate in geophysics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the lead author of the report.


San Andreas movement called significant
Using new techniques, scientists have confirmed there is significant movement along parts of the San Andreas fault.

The region of the San Andreas fault between Monterey County and Imperial County hasn’t moved in a significant way in more than 150 years, and other parts of the fault have been accumulating stress for more than 300 years.

The last big earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault, a magnitude 7.9 temblor, ruptured from Monterey County through Los Angeles County in 1857. Further south, the section of the San Andreas between San Bernardino County and Imperial County hasn’t ruptured in a major way since about 1690.
It’s pretty much impossible to say when the next one will happen.— Sam Howell
Howell said the time span for a large rupture on the southern San Andreas is, on average, once every 150 years or so. But the actual interval can vary over the centuries, and that’s why it’s hard to say exactly when the next big one will hit.
Howell said a better understanding of how California is being warped as a result of this accumulating seismic strain is helping scientists “understand more about how the fault is behaving and the effect it’s going to have in the surrounding region.”
The study, however, isn’t expected to help scientists suddenly predict the precise time and location of the next devastating quake. “It’s pretty much impossible to say when the next one will happen,” Howell said.
GPS data provided the raw information of how the earth is moving subtly from seismic pressure. 
Howell said it has been easy for scientists to see how California was moving in north, south, east and west directions, but it was much harder to show how the state was moving vertically due to seismic forces.

The big problem was that there are other factors that can influence whether land is rising and falling, such as changing groundwater levels. Some parts of California are sinking as groundwater is pumped out for irrigation.
The breakthrough accomplished by Howell and his team involved writing a computer code that filtered out how the land was rising or falling from non-seismic factors. 
“We wrote a computer code that could try and find the broad, large-scale signal,” Howell said. “It’s trying to find the smooth trend.”
Besides Howell, the other coauthors of the study were Bridget Smith-Konter and Neil Frazer, also at the University of Hawaii; Xiaopeng Tong of the University of Washington; and David Sandwell, of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The study received funding from the National Science Foundation.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-andreas-fault-20160622-snap-story.html

Handy Andy wrote:The reduction in fish is due to the Muslims Tom. You a of all people should know that.
Try Google for your answers.

Original Quill wrote:The problem is, 4Eva, that they have been predicting "the big one" since 1906, and it's never happened.  People get used to talking about it in the background, while carrying on with their lives.

And there's no sense in hoping it keeps to the rural area.  There is no such thing as avoiding it.  The San Andreas fault runs the entire length of the Pacific Coast.

The rest of the nation occasionally stirs about it because they are remote, and it appears as new 'news' when it comes to them.  It's a common thought around here, and real estate prices keep rising.