Antomy of an Earthquake- The fault plane soution for the 1989 Loma Prieta, Caslf

Question

Antomy of an Earthquake- The fault plane soution for the 1989 Loma Prieta, Caslfornia, earthquake shows the lateral and vertical (thrusts) movements occuring at depth. There was no surface expression of this fault plan. Section failure in San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

San Andreas Fault Formation- Formation of the San Andreas fault system as a series of transform faults in three successive stages. Enlargement shows the portion of southern California wehre the 1992 Landers, 1994 Northridge (Reseda), 1999 Hector Mine, and 2010 Redlands, Borrego, and El Mayor earthquakes occurred. Note the Janurary 2001 M6.8 Nisqually quake, in Washington State, related to the subduction zone offshore on map. Trail sign near the epiccenter of the 1906 San Franciso earthquake roughly marks the Pacific-North American plate boundary, Marin County, Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

In the 1978 movie Superman, the evil Lex Luthor plans to hit the San Andreas Fault with a nuclear missile, so that the land west of the fault will “fall into the ocean,” creating new oceanfront property that he has already purchased at a very good price. Briefly explain why his plan would never work, and what really will happen to land that is west of the fault in the long run.

Explanation / Answer

I'm personally a huge fan of DC COMICS and the 1978 Superman is one of my favorites. Well coming to the question discussed, the plan of Lex Luthor would really never work. Because for Luthor's plan to work the fault would have to be a NORMAL FAULT, but the San Andreas fault which Lex planned is a STRIKE-SLIP FAULT(moving past each other horizontally). The San Andreas fault is responsible for producing most of the earthquakes in Southern California. His plan involved detonating 500 megaton bomb into the San Andreas fault expecting everything to fall into the sea, which results to form new coastline.

But to be honest no amount of explosive energy is going to cause the exact devastating earthquake which he triggered. San Andreas fault already has large amounts of pressure and if his plan worked then it would likely cause little unpleasant earthquake and the geography of the west coast might shift by few yards. But if he was succeeded in detonating that 500 Megaton bomb which results in the movement of plate tectonics beneath then "the west coast falls into the ocean" and cause heavy damage along California which Superman even couldn't fix.

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