[Rockhounds] Part Of The San Andreas Fault Is Moving Way Faster Than We Previously Thought

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

As if the San Andreas fault wasn't concerning enough, research just
released today shows that a nearby portion of it is moving much faster than
scientists previously thought.

It's called the Mission Creek strand and it runs from around Indio, through
Desert Hot Springs and into the San Bernardino Mountains.

While it was long believed to have a slip rate of around 14 millimeters per
year <https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFM.T42A..01B/abstract>, the
paper, published in *Science Advances
<https://advances.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz5691>*,
argues that it's actually around 22 millimeters.

"This particular strand of the San Andreas fault has been interpreted to
not be very active," said Kimberly Blisniuk, a geochronologist at San Jose
State University and lead author on the study. "It's actually very active
and is the fastest slipping fault for the San Andreas in Southern
California. Therefore it has the highest likelihood of a large magnitude
earthquake to occur on it in the future."

https://laist.com/latest/post/20210324/San_andreas_fault_big_one_earthquake_Mission_creek