Earthquakes and the Bay Area

When we think of Silicon Valley, we usually think of technology and the latest and greatest. We do not usually dwell on the great weather or the fruit orchards of the past, left as fruit trees in our backyards. We also consciously avoid thinking about the earthquakes the Bay Area and the Valley have experienced. In my twelve plus years in the Valley, I have been fortunate to only have experienced a few minor ones. But, today's article in the SJ Mercury News on the estimated magnitude of the big quake of 1868 on the Hayward fault, reminds us that it should never be too far from our thoughts, at least in terms of being prepared. The column notes that there is a 27 percent chance that a 6.7 or higher magnitude quake will occur by 2032. But, this hardly tells us when one will occur or how devastating it can be. In the first few years in the Bay Area you tend to worry about it, but after a while it becomes apparent that quakes occur in Seattle, the Northeastern US, in India (remember the deadly one in Gujarat?), Mexico and many other places in the world. But, sometimes out of morbid curiosity one tends to check out the USGS earthquake maps for California. These are really great. Actually, the USGS Earthquake center shows earthquakes from all over the world and region by region with exact times and magnitudes. They are cool to see on the map, but we hope that we never have to deal with a big quake.