It's called California's Big One for a reason.
For more than a century, tectonic pressure has steadily and silently been building within the San Andreas fault line and the nearby San Jacinto fault line.
Now, a new computer model designed by researchers from the US and Europe suggests that tectonic pressures in this area are"unusually high".
"Our results show that stress levels on multiple fault segments are now at or above the highest values seen in the past millennium,""Right now, with stress at historically high levels across the region and more than 160 years elapsed since the last major rupture, the system is in a critically loaded state. " Elevated pressure doesn't guarantee an earthquake in the near future, but it has scientists like Burkhard concerned.
The San Andreas and San Jacinto fault lines meet at Cajon Pass, just northeast of Los Angeles. Together, these two fault systems are responsible for 90 percent of the tectonic slipping that occurs between the That's creating an immense amount of pressure – estimated to be 2.8 MPa on the Mojave South segment and 3.6 MPa on the San Jacinto Bernardino segment.
The stress accumulating in some parts of the southern San Andreas fault is greater than it has ever been in the past 1,000 years, according to new modeling. is traced in purple and the San Jacinto Fault is traced in blue. They meet at Cajon Pass.
(Burkhard et. al. ,What happens here, between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, could foretell the future of the region. Scientists think of it like an"earthquake gate". If it opens during a 'slip' event, it could include both fault line systems, causing a larger and more complex disaster.
To investigate further, Burkhard and colleagues joined up with researchers from Northern Arizona University, the University of Bern, the US Geological Survey, and the University of California, San Diego. They designed a physics-based computer model to better understand the history of fault lines in the region, and how we got to where we are today. The international team fed 1,000 years of earthquake history data from the region into their model, and then ran simulations.
In some past earthquakes in this region, the 'gate' appeared to be closed, which meant ruptures stopped at Cajon Pass and were contained to one fault line. In other scenarios, it was open. When it was open, there was a joint rupture that typically resulted in a larger and more complex earthquake.
"The conditions that determine whether the 'earthquake gate' at Cajon Pass opens or stays closed appear to be related to how closely the stress levels on the two fault systems are aligned with each other at the time of rupture,"At this point, that's really all we can do. Gather as much information on the region as we can, so we are best prepared when the fault lines rupture.
"What we can say is that the system is critically stressed, and that physics-based models like this one give us a clearer picture of the range of scenarios we should be prepared for,"
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