After traveling to Tibet, I bet you guys are
all extremely tired by now. That's why we're going back to the San
Francisco to rest up a bit before we go to another exotic location. Of course,
this doesn't mean that we can't visit and learn about another type of plate
boundary. Near San Francisco is the San Andreas Fault, created by the Pacific
Plate and the North American Plate sliding against each other. These types of
boundaries are called transform boundaries. The only characteristic they have is that they
create many earthquakes, so no volcanoes or large continental mountain chains.
The San Andreas Fault line is roughly 810 mi long and runs along the coast of
California. The place we're going to visit, the Golden Gate Bridge, is pretty
close to the fault and is located near San Francisco at 37°48'29.14"N
122°28'35.96"W. Like at most other boundaries, earthquakes activity is
quite common, and because the San Andreas Fault is quite close to San Francisco,
if an earthquake strikes the results may be deadly. For example, the 1906 San
Francisco Earthquake (7.9 magnitude) killed 3000 people and destroyed 80% of
the city. The result, 227,000 to 300,000 out of a population of 410,000 were
left homeless. Imagine if that same earthquake had struck today; the damage
would just be completely devastating. Because of these risks, scientists have
predicted that in the next 30 years, the probability of an earthquake with a
magnitude of 6.7 or higher is 59% and 21% on the southern and northern segments
of the fault respectively. Not to scare you or anything, but I think you should know the risks of living so close to a transform fault. The weather is predicted to be very warm and sunny, so be sure to bring some sunscreen and shorts! Bye for now!
-KY
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