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Just read that a single earthquake can move a whole mountain range over an inch
I was looking at a USGS report on the 1906 San Francisco quake and it said the ground shift was measured at 20 feet in some spots. That means the whole coastal range basically jumped that far in a minute. How does that not cause way more damage than it did?
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shane3275mo ago
Ever wonder what the ground itself is made of out there? A lot of that 20 foot shift happened along the actual fault line, like a clean tear. The land on either side just slid past each other. If that same movement happened under a city block, yeah, total ruin. But in the hills, it just redefines the landscape.
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sarahpark5mo ago
That clean tear idea is a bit too neat. I saw a report on the 1906 quake where the fault ripped through a forest, but it wasn't just a slide. It shoved whole sections of earth up or down several feet, not just sideways. That kind of lift under a hillside can start a landslide real easy, which is its own kind of ruin.
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noahs375mo ago
Guess my mental picture was too simple, huh?
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