New data on 2 Bay Area faults cause worry about next big quake

[Auggie]

From the San Francisco Chronicle / January 2, 2016:

The Hayward Fault, which ruptured in a devastating Bay Area earthquake nearly 150 years ago, could be linked to the quieter Rodgers Creek Fault deep beneath San Pablo Bay, and that would pose the threat of a far more powerful quake in the future, a new seismic study has found.

LINK TO EXCERPT: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/New-data-on-2-Bay-Area-faults-cause-worry-about-6731300.php?cmpid=gsa-sfgate-result

According the article, the magnitude of an earthquake depends on the length of the fault that produces it. The Hayward Fault (running from San Pablo Bay south to Alum Rock in San Jose) is about 60 miles long while the Rodgers Creek Fault (from San Pablo Bay to Healdsburg) is about 39 miles.

If the two rupture along their combined 99-mile length, they could trigger an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 -- a far larger quake than the 6.8 Loma Prieta quake of 1989.

Also according to the article, the last big Hayward Fault quake happened between Berkeley and Fremont in 1868 has been estimated at a magnitude 6.8. It shook the ground violently across 1,000 square miles, toppling buildings along the fault in Hayward and San Leandro, and shook others as far away as San Francisco and San Jose.

[still_one]

1. The Hayward Fault was always the elephant in the room. A whole mess load of hospitals and schools

are built right on it.

In fact the UC Berkley football stadium has the fault going right through it

[KamaAina]

2. As does the BART tube that goes under the East Bay Hills

out to Concord and Pittsburg/Bay Point.