Transform-Fault Boundaries-->California Edition

Hello science enthusiasts! Todays post is just about Transform fault boundaries and we will be traveling to back to the West Coast. No not Washington, no not Oregon, BUT YES. CALIFORNIA. Lets get excited people! If you want to find where we're at on GPS, the coordinates are 37 degrees 07'54.03'' N and 121 degrees 53'16.62'' W. And yes, still Isabella reporting for KWX- marine news ;). So sadly this is my last trip before I head back home because this is the last type of plate boundary I'm going to talk about with all of you geologists. I'll be staying at a hotel right near a science lab where I will have the pleasure of working with a man named Greg Barring. 


Here I go!

(http://www.traviscountyesdfirehire.org/jointhire/files/pic_airplane_757.jpg)

So Transform- Fault Boundaries are kind of hard to explinan but I will do my best translting what Greg says into something we all can understand. Basically, its where two different plates are sliding past each other horizontally. Its important to remember that most transform faults occur deep in the ocean and the areas where the sea-floor spreads look like a bunch of zig-zags. The most destructive though are the ones that occur on land like the one I will be referring to today. 

(http://www.platetectonics.com/book/page_5.asp)

So folks, lets take a look at the picture that Greg provided for me. Here we have the San Andreas fault zone that goes through California connecting the East Pacific Rise with the South Gorda and the Juan de Fuca which I talked about in my convergent zone--> west coast edition. Greg says that the Pacific Plate has been sliding/grinding past the North American Plate horizontally, for 10 MILLION YEARS. The scientists in the lab say that although the rate at which the plates move past each-other varies, it averages out to about 5 centimeters per year.

(http://www.quickandeasyscienceexperimentsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/san-andreas-fault.jpg)

If your wondering what the heck this is, its the San Andreas Fault!! Wow it sure is big. Greg and his partners believe that at the rate these plates are sliding past each other, L.A. will be NORTH of San Francisco in about 100 million years. It's unlikely we will live long enough to see this happen, but thats what we expect at this moment in time. 

(http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Imgs/Jpg/CraterLake/Images/CraterLake82_crater_lake_and_wizard_island_09-82_med.jpg)

California's most recent earthquake occurred only a few days ago, a magnitude of 3.9. Looking at the statistics, earthquakes occur ALL THE TIME here (even if you can't feel it). There are also plenty of volcanoes in and near California, luckily those volcanoes have not erupted recently. In the picture above, this shows one of California's crater lakes. 

Well fellow geologists, This has been an informational post on Transform-Fault Boundaries, reporting for KWX- marine news, Isabella B. 

Thanks for reading!