16 thoughts on “A California Earthquake”

  1. Can someone (who knows something) contribute to this concept of “The Big One” being “overdue”?

    If the statistics were Poisson, the chances of the Big One happening today are the same today as tomorrow as any other day since the last occurrence of The Big One.

    But are the statistics really Poisson? Doesn’t strain build up in the fault from deflection of the rock? Is the probability independent of accumlated movement of the fault over time?

    1. The statistics are not Poisson or random. Strain build up over time results in earthquakes, which release the strain to allow a new build up. Parkfield is wired like the US embassy in Moscow by the USGS in anticipation of the next quake on the central part of the fault. Every time I drive up to Mojave from LA, I hope that it doesn’t decide to cut loose as I cross the hills just south of Palmdale. The last major quake on the southern San Andreas was in 1857, in Tehachapi Tejon Pass in the Tehachapis, about sixty miles north of LA. It could happen any time.

      1. shouldn’t the Parkfield fault be wired up by a private company that sells the data into the market?

        2. Most thinking people agree that there are certain things the government does well. Your side thinks the government does everything well, which is why it screws up the things it can’t.

          Your simple-minded bias that small government proponents are blind and one sided is merely psychological projection.

          1. Bobby Jindal was out there whining that the US Govt was doing “Volcano Monitoring”. That was when he was giving the official response to the state of the union. If Jindal as the voice of the GOP hates volcano monitoring, why is earthquake monitoring so important?

            It seems like Rand is excercising free will to live in a disaster zone, why is his
            choice a burden on the taxpayers?

          3. Rand

            you have a fixation about Pedophilia and child rape. Is that a freudian thing for you?

          4. No. You moron. I have no such fixation. My fixation is with idiots who have complex questions, and who don’t even understand what that phrase means. The pedophilia thing is just to get your attention. But as with mules, who are probably universally smarter than you, a two by four between the eyes would apparently serve better.

    2. A better model might be the pink noise (with a 1/f spectrum), which also describes the little landslides on a building sandpile that’s reached its maximum supportable slope.

  3. Long overdue and it is good this little one happened because people, and the government, were getting complacent.

  4. There are some places more dangerous for particular possible disasters than others are, for sure.

    In the case of California, if you live there and want to reduce risk you actually have two choices. The obvious one is to move somewhere else altogether; but all areas have their own dangers. (Move from California to Oklahoma and you probably won’t die in an earthquake – but a tornado might get you.)

    The other is a little less obvious. There have been many houses built in areas where sensible planning regulations would have prevented the build – such as on unstable hillsides, or as highlighted recently (RIP the victims) at the bottom of such. Being buried under 50 feet of mud kills you just as dead as the building you live in collapsing.

    (Incidentally, I’m not particularly bashing the USA here. The UK has its own crooks and idiots, building thousands of houses on river floodplains being the favourite act of greedy stupidity here.)

    What can an individual do? Simple. Don’t buy a house in such an area. And take precautions appropriate to the area in which you live.

    One more thing: There are some dangers that you can’t guard against. Not by yourself, anyway. If a doomrock hits, or Yellowstone or Cumbre Vieja lets go…

Comments are closed.