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Hollister, California
In the San Francisco Bay area there are three major faults, from west to east the San Andreas, the Hayward, and the Calaveras; all are part of the San Andreas fault system. All of these are "right-lateral strike-slip faults," which means that the motion is predominantly horizontal, with the land on the west side of the fault moving north.
South of the Bay Area the Hayward and Calaveras merge into the San Andreas. Hollister is located just north of where this happens, right on top of the southern end of the Calaveras fault.
What makes Hollister particularly interesting is that from San Juan Bautista to just north of Parkfield the faults in the San Andreas system are not "stuck": instead of moving only during major earthquakes, they continuously "creep." As a result of this creep, Hollister is being slowly ripped in two, for the most part along a remarkably narrow zone running right through the middle of town.
The rate of creep is inconsistent, and has been measured at between 6 and 15mm per year at various times throughout the 20th century. Underground pipes, road paving, curbing, and foundations all show signs of being gradually shifted apart. Notice how the distortion always bends structures to the right- no matter from which side of the fault the photo was taken. Also notice that the motion is horizontal: the ground is remaining level as it moves. Together, these two observations define right-lateral strike-slip motion.
This seismogram is from the Villa Florida seismic station in Paraguay. The noise is from a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in northern Argentina that hit at 7:40 AM, local time, on 27 December 2025. The epicenter was about 37 kilometers northwest of the town of Añatuya, Argentina. The hypocenter was between 585 and 590 kilometers deep (below sea level), a considerable depth - such events are called "deep focus earthquakes". Shaking resulted from vertical movement along a subvertical, northwest-southeast striking fault zone or from oblique normal faulting along a low-angle, ~northeast-southwest striking fault zone.
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Info. from the United States Geological Survey about this zone of deep-focus earthquakes:
. . .
Earthquakes can also be generated to depths greater than 600 kilometers as a result of continued internal deformation of the subducting Nazca Plate. Deep-focus earthquakes in South America are not observed from a depth range of approximately 300 to 500 kilometers. Instead, deep earthquakes in this region occur at depths of 500 to 650 kilometers and are concentrated into two zones: one that runs beneath the Peru-Brazil border and another that extends from central Bolivia to central Argentina. These earthquakes generally do not exhibit large magnitudes. An exception to this was the 1994 Bolivian earthquake in northwestern Bolivia. This magnitude 8.2 earthquake occurred at a depth of 631 kilometers, which was until recently the largest deep-focus earthquake instrumentally recorded (superseded in May 2013 by a magnitude 8.3 earthquake 610 kilometers beneath the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia), and was felt widely throughout South and North America.
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Info. at:
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000rl1p/exec...
and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-focus_earthquake
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An earthquake is a natural shaking or vibrating of the Earth caused by sudden fault movement and a rapid release of energy. Earthquake activity is called "seismicity". The study of earthquakes is called "seismology". The actual underground location of an earthquake is the hypocenter, or focus. The site at the Earth's surface, directly above the hypocenter, is the epicenter. Minor earthquakes may occur before a major event - such small quakes are called foreshocks. Minor to major quakes after a major event are aftershocks.
Most earthquakes occur at or near tectonic plate boundaries, such as subduction zones, mid-ocean ridges, collision zones, and transform plate boundaries. They also occur at hotspots - large subsurface mantle plumes (Examples: Hawaii, Yellowstone, Iceland, Afar).
Earthquakes generate four types of shock waves: P-waves, S-waves, Love waves, and Rayleigh waves. P-waves and S-waves are body waves - they travel through solid rocks. Love waves and Rayleigh waves travel only at the surface - they are surface waves. P-waves are push-pull waves that travel quickly and cause little damage. S-waves are up-and-down waves (like flicking a rope) that travel slowly and cause significant damage. Love waves are side-to-side surface waves, like a slithering snake. Rayleigh waves are rotational surface waves, somewhat like ripples from tossing a pebble into a pond.
Earthquakes are associated with many specific hazards, such as ground shaking, ground rupturing, subsidence (sinking), uplift (rising), tsunamis, landslides, fires, and liquefaction.
Some famous major earthquakes in history include: Shensi, China in 1556; Lisbon, Portugal in 1755; New Madrid, Missouri in 1811-1812; San Francisco, California in 1906; Anchorage, Alaska in 1964; and Loma Prieta, California in 1989.
On my second visit to Lake Cowal back in early December, I was told about a place that was of great interest to geologists visiting the nearby gold mine. This trip I headed out to have a look.
Following is the information I was given to explain what I was going to see.
"The outcrop is part of the Booberoi Fault and features sheared Late Silurian-Early Devonian Edols Conglomerate (Sherwin, 1996) showing stretched quartzite and vein-quartz pebbles in a quartz white mica-chlorite matrix, which was probably a muddy sandstone. Mesoscopic kinematic indicators show at least two movement episodes: a horizontal sinstral movement and a near vertical reverse (west side up) movement. The movement direction can be discerned from the asymmetry of the matrix surrounding the pebbles and the mineral elongation within the matrix."
Video - youtu.be/gFIb1JXFTb8
The east side of Etna is unstable and moving inexorably down towards the sea. This perpetual slow landslide is bounded on the north by the Pernicana Fault, which can be clearly seen as cracks in the roadway here.
On my second visit to Lake Cowal back in early December, I was told about a place that was of great interest to geologists visiting the nearby gold mine. This trip I headed out to have a look.
Following is the information I was given to explain what I was going to see.
"The outcrop is part of the Booberoi Fault and features sheared Late Silurian-Early Devonian Edols Conglomerate (Sherwin, 1996) showing stretched quartzite and vein-quartz pebbles in a quartz white mica-chlorite matrix, which was probably a muddy sandstone. Mesoscopic kinematic indicators show at least two movement episodes: a horizontal sinstral movement and a near vertical reverse (west side up) movement. The movement direction can be discerned from the asymmetry of the matrix surrounding the pebbles and the mineral elongation within the matrix."
Video - youtu.be/gFIb1JXFTb8
My regards to Joanna Oh, who inspired me to shoot something like this, though the faults of this picture are entirely my own.
This is an heirloom rose variety in our front yard that seems to not want to give up trying to bloom, despite the winter storms that have wracked our area the last week.
The Niguelas fault plane, south of Granada.
At the NW end, the overlying clastic deposits are still present on top of the fault surface
On my second visit to Lake Cowal back in early December, I was told about a place that was of great interest to geologists visiting the nearby gold mine. This trip I headed out to have a look.
Following is the information I was given to explain what I was going to see.
"The outcrop is part of the Booberoi Fault and features sheared Late Silurian-Early Devonian Edols Conglomerate (Sherwin, 1996) showing stretched quartzite and vein-quartz pebbles in a quartz white mica-chlorite matrix, which was probably a muddy sandstone. Mesoscopic kinematic indicators show at least two movement episodes: a horizontal sinstral movement and a near vertical reverse (west side up) movement. The movement direction can be discerned from the asymmetry of the matrix surrounding the pebbles and the mineral elongation within the matrix."
Video - youtu.be/gFIb1JXFTb8
On my second visit to Lake Cowal back in early December, I was told about a place that was of great interest to geologists visiting the nearby gold mine. This trip I headed out to have a look.
Following is the information I was given to explain what I was going to see.
"The outcrop is part of the Booberoi Fault and features sheared Late Silurian-Early Devonian Edols Conglomerate (Sherwin, 1996) showing stretched quartzite and vein-quartz pebbles in a quartz white mica-chlorite matrix, which was probably a muddy sandstone. Mesoscopic kinematic indicators show at least two movement episodes: a horizontal sinstral movement and a near vertical reverse (west side up) movement. The movement direction can be discerned from the asymmetry of the matrix surrounding the pebbles and the mineral elongation within the matrix."
Video - youtu.be/gFIb1JXFTb8
On my second visit to Lake Cowal back in early December, I was told about a place that was of great interest to geologists visiting the nearby gold mine. This trip I headed out to have a look.
Following is the information I was given to explain what I was going to see.
"The outcrop is part of the Booberoi Fault and features sheared Late Silurian-Early Devonian Edols Conglomerate (Sherwin, 1996) showing stretched quartzite and vein-quartz pebbles in a quartz white mica-chlorite matrix, which was probably a muddy sandstone. Mesoscopic kinematic indicators show at least two movement episodes: a horizontal sinstral movement and a near vertical reverse (west side up) movement. The movement direction can be discerned from the asymmetry of the matrix surrounding the pebbles and the mineral elongation within the matrix."
Video - youtu.be/gFIb1JXFTb8
On my second visit to Lake Cowal back in early December, I was told about a place that was of great interest to geologists visiting the nearby gold mine. This trip I headed out to have a look.
Following is the information I was given to explain what I was going to see.
"The outcrop is part of the Booberoi Fault and features sheared Late Silurian-Early Devonian Edols Conglomerate (Sherwin, 1996) showing stretched quartzite and vein-quartz pebbles in a quartz white mica-chlorite matrix, which was probably a muddy sandstone. Mesoscopic kinematic indicators show at least two movement episodes: a horizontal sinstral movement and a near vertical reverse (west side up) movement. The movement direction can be discerned from the asymmetry of the matrix surrounding the pebbles and the mineral elongation within the matrix."
Video - youtu.be/gFIb1JXFTb8