Apr 17, 2025
Below California’s famed beaches, mountains and metropolitan areas lies a sinister web of earthquake faults — some so infamous that their names are burned into the state’s collective consciousness.
There is, of course, the mighty San Andreas, whose massive slip caused the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake and whose notoriety has sparked multiple movies, video games, books, T-shirts and collectibles.
Also well known in L.A. is the Newport-Inglewood fault, which unleashed the 1933 Long Beach earthquake — the deadliest temblor in Southern California’s modern history.
The large earthquake fault close to the one that moved Monday morning in the mountains of San Diego County, however, is comparatively obscure. But the Elsinore fault is part of a larger seismic zone that experts fear and believe more people should know about.
The Elsinore fault zone is actually one of the largest in Southern California, according to Caltech, but “in historical times, has been one of the quietest.”
However, that inactivity belies a devastating potency. The fault is capable of generating a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, said seismologist Lucy Jones, a Caltech research associate.
“The Elsinore fault is one of the major risks in Southern California,” Jones said.
The Elsinore fault zone runs from the Sonoran Desert in Imperial County through the western edge of Riverside County communities like Temecula, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore.
By the time it reaches Corona, it splits into two segments — the Chino fault, which heads toward Chino Hills; and the Whittier fault, which is near or bisects the L.A. County suburbs of Whittier, La Habra Heights, Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights, and La Habra, Brea and Yorba Linda in Orange County. READ MORE
Stay Awake. Keep Watch.
SOURCE: LA Times