The biggest threat to the Los Angeles earthquake is in the overlooked part of San Andreas

Scientists have identified a long-ignored portion of the San Andreas South Fault that they said could pose the most significant earthquake hazard for the greater Los Angeles area – and its release was delayed by nearly 80 years.

But there could be a silver lining. Experts say that if their analysis is correct, it is possible that when a long-anticipated and more devastating earthquake strikes, it may not cause as much damage to the area as some scientists previously feared.

“This is a significant reduction in the risk to Los Angeles if this is true,” said Lucy Jones, a longtime seismologist who was not involved in the study published Wednesday in Science Advances.

The San Andreas Fault is roughly 800 miles long and stretches most of California’s length and is capable of causing an extremely frightening mega earthquake known simply as the “Great Earthquake”.

As the continental plates in the Pacific and North America move across each other, the Southern San Andreas Fault carries about half the stress from that movement, up to 25 mm (about an inch) per year. Ultimately, this strain is triggered by earthquakes.

However, not every bit of error holds this pressure evenly. In Southern California, the San Andreas Fault System consists of many smaller “chains,” and it is difficult for earthquake researchers to determine which parts of the fault system are most at risk of rupture.

Case in point: the rift twine bundle – Garnet Hill, Banning, and Mission Creek – that crosses the Coachella Valley. Scientists have long believed that much of the slithering of the southern San Andreas Fault occurred along Banning Strip and Garnet Hill. They said that the thread of Mission Creek didn’t take much pressure at all.

But the new findings turn that idea on its head.

Kimberly Plisniuk, a seismologist at San Jose State University, went to search for evidence that earthquakes caused ground shapes to move across the surface. I stumbled upon Pushawalla Canyon, a site along the thread of Mission Creek in the Little San Bernardino Mountains.

There, next to a ravine carved by water, I saw a series of three ancient “decapitated canals” – long depressions in the desert that once seemed to be part of the original valley before earthquakes pushed them aside.

Plesniuk walked the area to get a better look at these telltale signs of an old rupture. In each channel, she and her team dated eras of rock and soil.

The oldest canal, located about two kilometers (more than a mile) from the current valley, was roughly 80,000 to 95,000 years old. The second, 1.3 kilometers (less than a mile), was about 70,000 years old; The decapitated third canal, about 0.7 kilometers (less than half a mile) away, was about 25,000 years old.

Based on these three parameters, the researchers calculated that Mission Creek’s average slip rate was about 21.6 mm (less than an inch) per year. At this rate, they realized that was the majority of the pressure along the Southern San Andreas Fault.

By contrast, they calculated that the Banning strand had an average slip of only 2.5 mm per year.

“I was really excited,” Blisniuk said, who said it took years to produce the data needed to prove a convincing case that the ancient canals actually made contact with the Pushawalla Canyon.

“The San Andreas mistake is one of the best studied mistakes in the world, and there is still a lot we can do” to understand it better, she said.

Because the southern San Andreas Fault is likely to experience Earth-torn earthquakes at an average rate of one every 215 years or so – and because the last earthquake in the southern section occurred in 1726 – we were about 80 years late, Plesniuk said.

Scientists have said that approximately six to nine meters of elastic strain has accumulated along the fault since the last fault – meaning that when it finally does release, the ground is likely to move about 20 to 30 feet. Whether it takes one earthquake, or many earthquakes, to reach that distance remains to be seen, Plesniuk said.

Thomas Heaton, professor emeritus of engineering seismology at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research, said the finding “appears to be a historical study.”

Jones, who was not involved in the study, is now retired from the US Geological Survey. But in 2008, she led a group of more than 300 scientists, engineers, and other experts to study in detail the potential consequences of a major event. The result was the ShakeOut earthquake scenario, which predicted that a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on the San Andreas fault would kill more than 1,800 people, injure 50,000, and $ 200 billion in damage and other losses.

Jones said the new findings could change that scenario and make it less bleak. Here’s why: The Big One could only be launched by a massive rupture along a long stretch of the San Andreas Fault, something within 200 miles. If this rupture ends up traveling along the Banning Strip – as the ShakeOut model has assumed – its East-West inclination will send energy into the San Bernardino Valley, San Gabriel Valley and finally to the Los Angeles Basin.

But if the rupture were to follow Mission Creek, its northwest direction would divert some of that energy away from the Los Angeles Basin, saving it some damage.

Ultimately, Jones said, “This is a piece in constant debate and not yet fully resolved – it probably won’t be resolved until the earthquake occurs.”

Heaton agreed.

He said, “It would be a surprise to me as a scientist if, when a real earthquake occurs, it occurs very close to what we imagined.” “The earth always takes us by surprise – it always reminds us that we need some humility in this business.”

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