Scientists warn that a “huge” earthquake could trigger the San Andreas Fault

A newly identified link between two notorious geological regions suggests that a large earthquake in one location could trigger another huge earthquake in the other, creating a double whammy of devastation.

Researchers led by a team from Oregon State University analyzed 137 different sediment cores collected from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, in the Pacific Northwest, and the northern San Andreas Fault, in California. In those samples, collected during five trips, they found evidence of simultaneous earthquakes at the two sites dating back about 3,000 years.

This evidence appeared in the form of turbidites: layered sediments that appear in cores when fast-moving landslides occur underwater, indicated by smaller grains on top and coarser grains below. In many cases, the timing of deposition of these turbidites was identical between Cascadia and San Andreas.

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Based on these conjunctions and the history of earthquakes in both regions, the researchers suggest that a magnitude 9 (M9) or “super-thrust” earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone could be enough to seriously destabilize the San Andreas Fault as well.

“It's hard to overstate what an M9 earthquake would be like in the Pacific Northwest,” says paleontologist Chris Goldfinger, of Oregon State University. “So the possibility of an earthquake occurring in San Andreas is cinematic territory.”

In the Cascadia subduction zone, the Juan de Fuca and Jorda plates slide beneath the North American plate. The area is about 1,000 km (621 mi) long, and the last known major thrust occurred here about 325 years ago, at the beginning of 1700.

Below California, the San Andreas Fault marks the boundary where the North American and Pacific plates slide past each other and create increased friction — across a distance of about 1,200 kilometers (about 750 miles). The last serious earthquake here was the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Links between earthquakes in the two regions have been suggested before, but that was a hypothesis based on limited data, with a larger margin of error.

Here, the evidence is more conclusive, arising from a set of particular deposits that were only excavated after a major navigational error sent researchers further south than they intended.

The researchers matched earthquake events on the West Coast of the United States. The Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) and the North San Andreas Fault (NSAF) meet near Cape Mendocino, California. (Goldfinger et al., Atmosphere, 2025)

That core, captured in Noyo Canyon off the coast of California, on the San Andreas side of the border between the two regions, showed signs of a double earthquake at both locations, and led researchers to look for similar patterns on a larger scale.

“A light bulb went on and we realized that the Noyo Channel was likely recording the Cascadia earthquakes, and that at a similar distance, the Cascadia sites were likely recording the San Andreas earthquakes,” Goldfinger says.

These are two of the most well-known earthquake zones on the planet, and the idea that they could communicate with each other – given a large enough initial event – ​​is vital to risk modeling and planning. Perhaps we are talking about an earthquake that shakes the entire American Pacific coast.

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While the focus of the study is on the Cascadia subduction zone that causes the San Andreas Fault, the researchers leave open the possibility that this stimulation could occur in the other direction as well, which is another avenue that future studies could explore.

“I'm from the Bay Area originally,” Goldfinger says. “If I were in my hometown of Palo Alto, and Cascadia exploded, I think I would drive east. It seems to me like there's too much risk.” [that] “San Andreas will explode next.”

The research was published in the journal Geosphere.

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