California Waits for The Big One

Science Alert says that the next earthquake on the San Andreas fault may be worse than expected.

When we lived on the west side of the fault in Ventura County, I always assumed that we would wind up on one of the new Channel Islands if The Big One had hit while we were there.

11 thoughts on “California Waits for The Big One


  1. Having recently moved to Oxnard (by necessity, not by choice) I simply assume I won’t survive a major quake.

    When I moved from California to North Carolina years ago, people here asked me if I was worried about hurricanes. I typically would answer no, you can see the hurricanes coming. Earthquakes… not so much.


      • I was in college in Pomona when the Northridge quake hit. I have two distinct memories: waking up already standing in the closet doorway in my underwear, and the extremely frazzled sweatshirt-clad intern on the air at KNBC.


  2. Speculation here: We’ve just had a “supermoon”, which is when a full moon coincides with the Moon being closer to the Earth than most times. (Although the Moon could be said to orbit the Earth with an elliptical orbit, I believe that the center of mass of the combined Earth/Moon orbit is outside the surface of the Earth, so that it’s more accurate to say that the pair orbit the Sun, rather than the Earth being a more major player.)

    Measurements of the Earth show that it “wobbles” to some extent: It is not a stiff, static ball, but does have a small, but measurable, oscillation (I’m not sure of the relevant axis and/or axes).

    Phenomena such as tides are clearly related to the Moon.

    Perhaps the Moon has some role in influencing the recent large earthquakes, notably around the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, and California, as part of that ring, is a candidate for another event.

    It’s possible that the recent events may have influenced the “wobble”/resonance, and this may be generating more stress on other portions of the globe.

    Lots of “possibles” and “maybe”s above, but earthquake prediction is not a (“settled science” /sarc).


  3. They keep saying there’s going to be a big earthquake but it doesn’t happen. I’ve got desert property that supposed to be beachfront property. Their predictions are always bad.

    Earthquakes come quickly, sometimes leave a few aftershocks, and then are done.


    • “Earthquakes come quickly, sometimes leave a few aftershocks, and then are done.”

      I love this “sometimes”! In the last 6 years we’ve had at least 6 major quakes (or groups of quakes) and every one has been followed by months of aftershocks.

      They started in 2010, and we just had a new major set (see link above) about 10 days ago.

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