Will California fall into the ocean?

saying good morning Alison and Robert. My girlfriend is currently going to college where one of her professors told her there is a theory that one end that one day the Santa's fault will split, plummeting the West Coast into the ocean, never to be heard from again. I'm skeptical about it, but I wanted to see what you had

to say. Thanks for your consideration, Love the podcast. Matt. Okay, Well, you know this is actually a really popular idea, at least I mean in terms of like pop culture references to it. Yeah, it's it's out there, like like, were you aware of it? Had you had you encountered this anywhere in pop culture beforehand? A little bit? Yeah? How about you? Yeah, mainly I was familiar with it out because of like there's at least one Tool song that

makes reference to it a lot off of the Autuma album. Okay, I'm not familiar with that one. Yeah that was from back in uh in high school when that one came out, Uh, really good album. But we put the call for Facebook two people for people to come in on this y yeah, because because I just remembered that one and I was like, all right, well, what else is there? Because I know it's a really common thing, right so um uh. This guy Michael, who I went to high school with, by

the way, said Michael from high school. He said that Jimmy Eats World song Blister had features it. Um. A guy named John told us quote escape from l A do you even have to ask? Also sometimes my dreams Oh all right, so yeah, I guess he doesn't like CALLI. Um. Heather Right mentions something called the End of the World. It's like a flash cartoon on the internet. Um uh. David mentions, uh the stand up comedy of Bill Hicks, um,

which I think was also referenced on the that Tool album. Um. Valerie says, quote, I think there's a rancid song that even adds an expletive between fall into the and ocean, So, um, all right, I don't know what that expletive could be. But and then, and then one of my favorites, Warren Zyvon had a song called Desperadoes under the Eaves and

there's a part in it. I think it's in the course where he's like, and if California falls into the ocean, like the mystics and statistics say it will, Like that's very nice, Robert, Well, thank you. Yeah. So, but that's the thing. Do you do the other part of the other big Warren Zevon song. Well, the weird thing is it's like, do you think that's representative? Yes? And no?

Like I love that song, but like, you know, you go out to karaoke, and I'm always I don't go out to kara okay a lot, but when I do, I always check out Warren's. Vanni is one of the few artists that I like, Like, these are fun songs to sing, right, but they almost always will just have Werewolves of London, which is really more of us, Like he's kind of talking in that song and it's not

really sung per se as fun as it is. And he has so many other songs that are a lot more you know, just a lot more fun to sing, like Excitable Boy or or Desperadoes under the Eaves, you know. So so yeah, and it's and he did so much other work. That's great. So Callie and Warren's that's what we bring to you today. So let's do a quick refresher on earthquakes. Yeah, because that's what we're talking about. That's what would cause California too, in theory, fall into

the ocean. Right now, that California sin that's going on in Californization, but no California earthquakes. That's that's what we're interested in. I just I was thinking about the Chili Peppers. I was trying to think if they had referenced California falling into the ocean. That's like, I don't think, I guess not. I think I'm not that familiar with their work, but I was a huge fan Mother's Milk No Never, I mean I knew from the tracks off of it.

But but anyway, it's like nobody mentioned it on Facebook, So alright, Facebook has to be right. So what's an earthquake again? You guys know this, you're probably saying it with us it's just really when the ground starts shaking beneath your feet, and what does that cause? By shaking is caused by a sudden motion in the in the plates that are all around us in the Earth's cross energy waves like moving through the cross. Right. Yeah, it's

pretty simple explanation. A rock jockey, you might tell you something a little different, get a little bit more into detail. And where do they happen? Right? So, earthquakes can happen anywhere anywhere anywhere, well on Earth. True, it's not just Calie, it's not just the famous Ring of Fire. Um. They do tend to concentrate in three zones, according to the

United States Geological Survey. So first one, you guys are going to know this one Pacific rim Ak, the Ring of Fire, and that's responsible for more than eight percent of earthquakes. Yeah, Johnny Cash wrote a song about it, right he did. Are you gonna sing that too? Okay? Ah. There's another belt called the Alpine and that's a found in Indonesia and it kind of trails into the Atlantic. And then there's a last belt that tracks the mid Atlantic rich and it's underwater, so it's not the big one.

It's not the ram of Fire. We don't hear a whole lot about that one. And it's important to note too that you know, earthquakes on TV or the ones that you know your friend is likely to tell you about, you know, at dinner is something that you feel obviously, but you don't always feel them. Sometimes they're so subtle that you'd really have to have like some some actual seismological you know, equipment to determine them. Yeah. Here in

Georgia we have them. There was one in August, fifth magnitude two point two, so right, probably probably not too detectable. The eppy center of that one was close to Millageville. Somehow, I don't picture Millageville and Georgia being you know, it's like Milan filosity. The earth quake capital isn't now where that football scandal just went down. I think it was m hm, no idea. Okay, So here's another earthquake term that we should mention. Fault. Yes, when you're talking about earthquakes,

a lot of times you're talking about faults. And so here's the quick definition for you, the quick, the quick and dirty. It's a fracture, really um and it's a fracture in the Earth. On either side of the Earth, you're gonna have these blocks of crust and they're moving

relative to one another, parallel to the fracture. Yeah, it's kind of like I always think of it when I look at an actual skull, you know, like a human skull or a model of the human skull, because they don't do it a lot of just staring at real skulls. But you know how like the skull is not one bone, it's several and you can see the different lines where they come together, and that's like the crust of the Earth. Well, today we're going to talk mainly about the San Andrea's fault.

That's the big one, and it's it's really the boundary between the North American and the Pacific plates, right, and it's visible to the eye and that that's pretty cool because most of the big faults aren't. Yeah, this one is one you can you can to these really spectacular you know, aerial shots of it, and it looks like two massive, uh you know, chunks of of the the Earth's surface are rubbing against each other and causing it kind of looks like scar tissue, like geologic scar tissue,

and that's kind of what it is. Yeah, it's also kind of like a truugh yeah in the earth. Like if you've ever seen like Abdullah the butcher's forehead out, throw that out to the wrestling fans. That's what it

looks like. It's like a gritty, starts, hard tissue. Something else that's cool about the Santa Jay as well is, um, you can literally straddle two plates, right and these these plates, these tectonic plates we're talking about, are enormous, right, they have a whole lot of land behind them or you know, to the right and the left of them, if you're

going to think about it like that. Um, so near the Santa Jeria's fault, you can find you can like sit one ft on the North American plate, the other foot on the Pacific plate like Hawaii, Japan, all of that. So that's really cool. It reminds me of that spot in the United States where the four Corners where you can yeah yeah, yeah, where it's like, yeah, you get all the touristy photos of in this state, right right.

So the San andre is specifically is a strike slip fault, okay, and this is uh, this is where the two plates are trying to push past each other. And if they pass one another easily, it's no big deal, right, But it's when they can't, when the plates are locked, that tension builds up and boom, you get a big earthquake, like I tend to think of like like if and don't do this because you might you know, you don't

want to damage your enamel. But like when teeth are grinding, you know, like grinding your teeth, and if you would have put like so much pressure that you couldn't quite grind them, you know where it's like earthquake in your mouth. Yeah, exactly. That's what comes to mind when when we were looking over all this stuff. Yeah, and it's not just a strike slip fall. It's a right lateral strike slip. So

let's let's set this up for you. Let's say you're standing on the North American Plate so um, with your back to New York, and you're facing the Pacific Plate. You're facing the Pacific Ocean. So the plate, the Pacific Plate, with look like it's moving to the right. Okay, So how much is it moving? That's the big question? Right, Well, not not enough to really like you're not gonna notice it, like if your house is on the fault line. You're not gonna look at and be like, whoa, there is

a forest there yesterday. Now it's a desert, right, So yeah, you're not really going to notice it because it's forty six millimeters a year. That's hardly noticeable to us. But you get a big great earthquake going on, like the earthquake of nineteen o six, and you're gonna have some pretty major offsets. So according to the U s G S them, there was a road that wound up being

offset by one feet. Okay, well that's noticeable. It's definitely noticeable. Um, the San Andrew's fault has been around for fifteen five million years and it's experienced a creep of about miles. That's about normal. It sounds like a lot, but yeah, it is pretty normal. Yeah. And again we're talking about the Pacific plate, the one that's um moving north with respect to the North America, and it's got some southern California on it, though not all of southern California, just

like it's like a tasty strip of it, you know. Yeah. Right, So the Sant Andreas Fault, we haven't really told you, Um,

you know, some of its geographics specifics. Yeah, it's what long. Yeah, it runs past San Francisco in the north all the way up to Mendocino, and then to the south, it runs past Los Angeles to the Sultan Sea, so roughly echoes the California coastline for much of it, but as you amble south along the fault zone, it moves more inland and you know, dividing somewhat northern California from southern California. Beneath the coast, the fault can reach up to ten

miles into the ground. Ten miles into the ground, So it's deep, it is, and it's a It's another thing to keep in mind here when you talk about, well California fall into the ocean, is that the fall line we're talking about is not like they didn't like put the state boundary on the fall line or anything. It's like not even close. It's uh, you know, it's a good ways off. But I mean some parts of it

really do separate, you know, California from the ocean. I mean it doesn't literally, but if you look at it on an aerial of view or just in the geographic boundary for sure, out in the northern part of it, between California and the sea. But say between California and Arizona. No, No, there's no fault line out there. I mean there's there's no fault line dividing the two states. So with that rather powerful fault line there in California, obviously there have

been some some pretty powerful earthquakes over time. Right, we're talking about thousands of earthquakes occurring in California every year, and in the San Andrea's fault zone is responsible for most. So the first recorded California earthquake occurred in seventeen sixty nine. Um, there was an expedition, the gaspar da Portola Expedition, that was camped about thirty miles outside of Los Angeles, and

they reported it. They reported four severe shocks. Yeah. And then the most famous and destructive was, of course the ninety six earthquake, and that's technically April. Yeah, sir, this was cool. The U. S g. S, as you guys probably know, is just this amazing treasure trove of awesome info. And um, they had a link to some eyewitness accounts from that earthquake, so I wanted to read you part of one. This is from John J. Conlin, who was seven on the day of the great earthquake. Okay, are

you going to do this in like an old dude voice? Well, no, seven, So well, I guess yeah. Well I'll give it my best, my best attempt. Um. Okay. So there was never any question in my mind as to the severity of the earthquake. At five thirteen on that Wednesday morning, I was awakened from a sound sleep by the shaking of my bed

and the house father heard it. Flossy. Flossy is this woman who apparently assisted John J. Conlin's mom in case you guys were wondering, So father hearded Flossy, my brother and me into a doorway for protection in the event the house collapsed. Actually it was only slightly damaged within moments. During this period of the city's greatest in emergency, the unusual silence of the alarm belt told its own story. The system was destroyed, as was the functioning of the

city's thirty thousand telephones. For once and tragically, so the cries of chapped victims for help generally refer to the fire department for attention could not instantly activate rescue crews. Conlin gives a lot more detail, but he winds up ending with May the children of San Francisco or any place never again enjoy such an experience as mine. But the truth is earthquakes happen all the time, and big ones happen all the time, and hundreds of thousands of people,

you know, wind up losing their lives. And by the way, you mentioned standing under the doorway, and the US Geological Survey points out that that's a rather, that's an outdated notion that was based on the idea that in the old days it would shake houses down and at times that would be like the reinforced part of the house, and so that would that would be some of it, that would be what was still standing after the house

came down. But they say, don't do that. All right, good information, Robert, So, I like we've given you guys a lot of preamble to the question at hand. The question posed in the podcast title is Calli're going to fall into the ocean and it will No, No, it's not. I read it wrong off the sheet. It's no, it's not going to fall into the ocean. What up? Well, because well, for several reasons. Well, first of all, it's again,

like we said, the fault line. Even if the fault the fault line could magically have like the super magnitude quake that could make the make part of it fall into the ocean, it wouldn't be the whole state. And secondly, the ocean isn't deep enough. It's not just this you know, yawning hole and which we can throw entire states. Yeah, it's and you know, you've seen the movie where like the earthquake makes a big hole open up and stuff falls into it and Superman is to save somebody or

you know, erroneous but cool. Yeah, Yeah, it's like that doesn't happen. That's again we're talking about. Fault lines are about things pushing together, grinding against each other, like your teeth. You know, it's like they're grinding together, but they're they're not opening up and rending the earth asunder. I just love saying that rending the earth asunder. It feels very biblical. Yeah. I think I used to have, like when was the kid, that was like a Bible book and it had a

picture of somebody being swallowed up by the earth. Yeah, so California is not going to be swept up to see, but it is moving. It definitely is moving um compliments of the two plates bumping up against each other in the fault zone and seth Western California is moving slowly, very slowly. Two inches per year is one that the USGS provided towards Alaska, and it's sliding past central and

eastern California. And so you know, roughly fifteen million years from now or so, Los Angeles and San Franciscan's will be neighbors. That's pretty amazing. So the super evolved squid that take over and live in Los Angeles, they will be right next door to the super evolved cockroaches that live in in San Francisco. Indeed, maybe I hope they

get along. Um Brinkley Seismological Lab is also an agreement on this one, both of which are pretty good sources for you guys to check out if you're interested in exploring this more. And besides which, earthquakes are just really interesting and the U s G s it is pretty amazing when I guess and stuff, and we have a good article on how earthquakes work. Did you work on one? No? I did not. Maybe it was the brain. I think the brain. I think it may have human at least

may have co authored that one. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the answer to the question. It is moving, but no, it's not going to be swept into the ocean because the ocean is a landmass in itself, albeit one with water on top of it. But it's it's just not going to swallow up California. Yeah. I think people love it though, because there's you know, people have a lot of either hatred towards California. So this is feeling of yeah, it should break off and be its own thing or

or you know, drowned in the ocean. So right, and then there's a whole movement in California, you know, between northern California and southern California and being a very different mindsets. According to some residents, it feels very different in play. I mean I just actually just got back from California. My wife and I went on a vacation and we got to see like Sam Cisco in l A. Took us a lot longer to travel between the two you know, two cities now than it will millions of years in

the future. But yeah, it's like like it's it feels almost like a different state and it's a huge state. Yeah, no doubt. My brother lives in San Franz. Yeah. So thanks to Florida Mike for bringing that one to our attention and for giving us inspiration for this podcast. Do you want to do some listener mail Robert, Yeah, I've got some more, UM, and it's a good podcast to do this on, since the whole episodes came from a

listener mail. UM, we received an email and we were both excited about this from uh Jenna, also known as hookworm Girl by US listeners. I mean we don't call her hook well, maybe we did call her girl. I think you call um. She's lovely feet, she said us a new pictures feet, new picture of her feet, and yes they look. It's a complete turnaround from the parasite infected uh things we saw before hookworms. You can see the hookworm track center and the skin and her feet.

It was pretty awesome. Yeah, now they look they look pedicured and you know, the the toenails are nice, twinkly read and I'm very very healthy looking. And so anyways, she wrote as in centensis picture and she says, this is Jenna from Vancouver. I eat Hookworm Girl. Not to be confused with the superhero, although although that might be interesting and I agree. I just wanted to let you know that I am so tickled pink every time I hear my foot mention on your podcast. Here it is

getting another mention. I never would have dreamed that that picture would have made such an impression. How could it not. It's pretty gross picture to put your mind at ease, I thought I would send you a more recent foot picture and thank you again for the great podcast. I work in a lab looking for new therapeutic strategies for fighting tuberculosis, and sometimes the lack of progress being made

in antibotic research can be a little terrifying. On this note, I would like to suggest a podcast on bacterial phage based therapies. Yeah. I did a little research into it after she sending her email, and I think we might have to cover that. Although we have devoted a little bit of time to bacteria recently with the whole quorum sensing and the altruistic bacteria. Yeah, we've been hitting the

bacteria pretty hard. So so yeah, so anyway, thanks thanks for letting us know that your your foot is better. It's kind of become a u. The third member of the podcast, yeahs foot, Josh writes, um, what's up stuff from the science Lab. I was just listening to the Wow Signal podcast in my car. I'm currently stopped not emailing while driving good enough, and it reminded me of a SETI phenomenon that a friend of mine caught potentially um.

It was around and a bunch of my nerdy friends and I were enjoying running steady at home on our computers as we're all a lot to do, you know, and an evening. Uh. Generally, the data packets that you would sift through just showed random noise. But for a brief period during one day, a friend of mine was receiving perfect waves. They were so perfect against the unusual randomness that he shot a few emails with screenshots to let Setty people know, UH to check check it out.

A week or so later, he got a cryptic email back claiming some unusual interference from something suspicious and was told just to disregard it. Perhaps just because this is so awesome, this gives me, this is my new favorite listener email. Just perhaps just because conspiracies are fun. We've always held onto the belief that we just happened to see something that they didn't want us to see. They in caps all caps. No, I don't think he did put it in all caps, but that's how I imagine it.

Of course, nothing has come of it in the intervening eleven years, so who knows. I love your podcast more than I can express, and I hastily written email on my phone. It keeps me a company for the six to eight hours I spend in the car every day. Oh man, that's a long time. Please continue doing it forever. We will do it at least as long as it takes for Los Angeles to be creep right up to

San Francisco. So I mean, you knows from beyond the grave, if you're really locking us in there, well, with all that you know science going on, we could, you know, we could live forever, Robert and record podcasts for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot Com? Want more house? We hope that's a happy in your house. Tell us about cheery sperience with earthquakes or um alien signals? Yeah, yeah, And we're on science stuff at house to works dot com, and

of course on social networking. You can find us on Facebook We're stuff from the Science Lab, and over on Twitter. R l as a tweet master, so we're lap stuff. So yeah, that's all we got today. Thanks for listening.