Active San Andreas Fault Threatens California Infrastructure

MECCA, CA - APRIL 1: In an aerial view from a drone, colorful minerals are seen on the Pacific Plate side of the San Andreas Fault, where it collides with the North American Plate (the more uniform colored earth in the distance), at the northwest edge of the Mecca Hills badlands on April 1, 2021 near Mecca, California. The San Andreas Fault, long feared for its potential to cause the biggest natural disaster ever in Southern California, is capable of producing and 8.1-magnitude earthquake. The southern segment of the fault, extending for hundreds of miles from the Salton Sea in the south, passes as close as 35 miles from Los Angeles, through the Big Bend section in Kern County and on to Parkfield in Monterey County. It is the Big Bend section of the fault that is believed to have become locked, preventing the fault from slipping to release the ever-increasing pressures caused by the grinding of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)