![green epidote crystal val malenco valtellina italy green epidote crystal val malenco valtellina italy](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/macro/thumbs/thumbs_epidoto-sissone.jpg)
![vesuvianite val malenco valtellina italy vesuvianite val malenco valtellina italy](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/macro/thumbs/thumbs_vesuviana-val-lanterna-3.jpg)
![vesuvianite val malenco valtellina italy vesuvianite val malenco valtellina italy](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/macro/thumbs/thumbs_vesuviana-val-lanterna.jpg)
![geode calcedonio brasil (2).JPG geode calcedonio brasil (2).JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/south-america/thumbs/thumbs_geode-calcedonio-brasil-2.jpg)
![geode calcedonio brasil.JPG geode calcedonio brasil.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/south-america/thumbs/thumbs_geode-calcedonio-brasil.jpg)
![magnetite brasil.JPG magnetite brasil.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/south-america/thumbs/thumbs_magnetite-brasil.jpg)
![quartz japanese geminate brasil.JPG quartz japanese geminate brasil.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/south-america/thumbs/thumbs_quartz-japanese-geminate-brasil.jpg)
![azurite morocco.JPG azurite morocco.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_azurite-morocco-2.jpg)
![calcite morocco.JPG calcite morocco.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_calcite-morocco.jpg)
![carollite.JPG carollite.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_carollite.jpg)
![celestine madagascar.JPG celestine madagascar.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_celestine-madagascar.jpg)
![cerussite barite morocco.JPG cerussite barite morocco.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_cerussite-barite-morocco.jpg)
![malachite Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) Lukuni Mine in Katanga Province.JPG malachite Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) Lukuni Mine in Katanga Province.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_malachite-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-formerly-zaire-lukuni-mine-in-katanga-province.jpg)
![vanadinite morocco.JPG vanadinite morocco.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/africa/thumbs/thumbs_vanadinite-morocco.jpg)
![almandine gilgit pakistan.JPG almandine gilgit pakistan.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_almandine-gilgit-pakistan.jpg)
![fluorite china.JPG fluorite china.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_fluorite-china.jpg)
![fluorite india.JPG fluorite india.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_fluorite-india.jpg)
![hematite rose on quartz china.JPG hematite rose on quartz china.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_hematite-rose-on-quartz-china.jpg)
![lapislazzuli afganistan.JPG lapislazzuli afganistan.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_lapislazzuli-afganistan.jpg)
![quartz epidote china.JPG quartz epidote china.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_quartz-epidote-china.jpg)
![topaz pakistan.JPG topaz pakistan.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_topaz-pakistan.jpg)
![topaz quartz pakistan.JPG topaz quartz pakistan.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_topaz-quartz-pakistan.jpg)
![tormaline pakistan.JPG tormaline pakistan.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_tormaline-pakistan.jpg)
![zircone pakistan.JPG zircone pakistan.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/asia/thumbs/thumbs_zircone-pakistan.jpg)
![analcime sardegna,Italy.JPG analcime sardegna,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_analcime-sardegnaitaly.jpg)
![andradite garnet isola d'elba,Italy.JPG andradite garnet isola d'elba,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_andradite-garnet-isola-delbaitaly.jpg)
![aragonite spagna.JPG aragonite spagna.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_aragonite-spain.jpg)
![calcite italy.JPG calcite italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_calcite-italy.jpg)
![calcite valtellina,Italy (2).JPG calcite valtellina,Italy (2).JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_calcite-valtellinaitaly-2.jpg)
![calcite valtellina,Italy (4).JPG calcite valtellina,Italy (4).JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_calcite-valtellinaitaly-4.jpg)
![calcite valtellina,Italy.JPG calcite valtellina,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_calcite-valtellinaitaly.jpg)
![epidote valmalenco,Italy.JPG epidote valmalenco,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_epidote-valmalencoitaly.jpg)
![grossularia liguria,Italy.JPG grossularia liguria,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_grossularia-liguriaitaly.jpg)
![hessonite adamello,Italy.JPG hessonite adamello,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_hessonite-adamelloitaly.jpg)
![orthoclase quartz elba island,Italy.JPG orthoclase quartz elba island,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_orthoclase-quartz-elba-islanditaly.jpg)
![pyromorphite sardegna,Italy.JPG pyromorphite sardegna,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_pyromorphite-sardegnaitaly.jpg)
![quartz emilia romagna,Italy.JPG quartz emilia romagna,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_quartz-emilia-romagnaitaly.jpg)
![quartz formazza,Italy.JPG quartz formazza,Italy.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_quartz-formazzaitaly.jpg)
![quartz rodocrosite romania.JPG quartz rodocrosite romania.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/europe/thumbs/thumbs_quartz-rodocrosite-romania.jpg)
![apatite messico.JPG apatite messico.JPG](https://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/gallery/north-america/thumbs/thumbs_apatite-messico.jpg)
![]() |
A schematic block model of Southern California showing the motion of the Pacific and North American plates, and the big bend of the San Andreas fault where the plates squeeze together. |
A fault system that runs from San Diego to Los Angeles is capable of producing up to magnitude 7.3 earthquakes if the offshore segments rupture and a 7.4 if the southern onshore segment also ruptures, according to an analysis led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
The Newport-Inglewood and Rose Canyon faults had been considered separate systems but the study shows that they are actually one continuous fault system running from San Diego Bay to Seal Beach in Orange County, then on land through the Los Angeles basin.
“This system is mostly offshore but never more than four miles from the San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles County coast,” said study lead author Valerie Sahakian, who performed the work during her doctorate at Scripps and is now a postdoctoral fellow with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Even if you have a high 5- or low 6-magnitude earthquake, it can still have a major impact on those regions which are some of the most densely populated in California.”
The study, “Seismic constraints on the architecture of the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault: Implications for the length and magnitude of future earthquake ruptures,” appears in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research.
The researchers processed data from previous seismic surveys and supplemented it with high-resolution bathymetric data gathered offshore by Scripps researchers between 2006 and 2009 and seismic surveys conducted aboard former Scripps research vessels New Horizon and Melville in 2013. The disparate data have different resolution scales and depth of penetration providing a “nested survey” of the region. This nested approach allowed the scientists to define the fault architecture at an unprecedented scale and thus to create magnitude estimates with more certainty.
They identified four segments of the strike-slip fault that are broken up by what geoscientists call stepovers, points where the fault is horizontally offset. Scientists generally consider stepovers wider than three kilometers more likely to inhibit ruptures along entire faults and instead contain them to individual segments – creating smaller earthquakes. Because the stepovers in the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon (NIRC) fault are two kilometers wide or less, the Scripps-led team considers a rupture of all the offshore segments is possible, said study co-author Scripps geologist and geophysicist Neal Driscoll.
The team used two estimation methods to derive the maximum potential a rupture of the entire fault, including one onshore and offshore portions. Both methods yielded estimates between magnitude 6.7 and magnitude 7.3 to 7.4.
The fault system most famously hosted a 6.4-magnitude quake in Long Beach, Calif. that killed 115 people in 1933. Researchers have found evidence of earlier earthquakes of indeterminate size on onshore portions of the fault, finding that at the northern end of the fault system, there have been between three and five ruptures in the last 11,000 years. At the southern end, there is evidence of a quake that took place roughly 400 years ago and little significant activity for 5,000 years before that.
Driscoll has recently collected long sediment cores along the offshore portion of the fault to date previous ruptures along the offshore segments, but the work was not part of this study.
In addition to Sahakian and Driscoll, study authors include Jayne Bormann, Graham Kent, and Steve Wesnousky of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Alistair Harding of Scripps. Southern California Edison funded the research at the direction of the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission.
“Further study is warranted to improve the current understanding of hazard and potential ground shaking posed to urban coastal areas from Tijuana to Los Angeles from the NIRC fault,” the study concludes.
The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research