Just after midnight today, a faint jolt rippled through Santa Monica. The preliminary 2.3 magnitude tremor, centered about 2 miles west of the city at a depth of 4 miles, was too weak for most Angelenos to notice, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But for scientists watching Southern California’s fault lines, even the smallest shake is a reminder of something far more unsettling brewing underground. New research suggests the region’s most infamous fault is not just overdue for a major earthquake. It may be capable of something worse than anyone imagined.
A fault that has gone quiet for too long
The San Andreas fault stretches roughly 800 miles through California, and its southern section has not produced a major rupture in about 160 years. That silence, it turns out, is the problem.
A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth found that tectonic stress along the San Andreas and neighboring San Jacinto fault systems has climbed to its highest level in 1,000 years, and in some segments has already surpassed it. Geologist Patrick Abbott, a professor emeritus at San Diego State University, told KTLA that never in the past millennium has this much energy been stored in the region’s rocks…