Tina M Wenger Art Collections

San Andreas Fault SAF series

A visit to the SAF San Andeas Fault in Palm Springs is one of awe. I am grateful to have had the chance to stand and walk the grounds where the fault lies beneath. Taking pictures to preserve time and scenery was a historical experience. Consider this: The San Andreas Fault is a place where two tectonic plates touch, the North American and Pacific Plates. The plates are rigid (or almost rigid) slabs of rock that comprise the crust and upper mantle of the Earth. The SAF is about 700 miles long as the crow flies and about 800 miles long when its curves are measured. It is roughly ten miles deep, and reaches from the Salton Sea in Imperial county to Cape Mendocino in Humboldt county. The SAF is about 28 million years old. It 'began' when the East Pacific Rise, the boundary between the Farallon and Pacific Plates, subducted under the North American Plate near what is now Los Angeles. Spreading northwest and southeast, The SAF gradually grew, and it still growing. The grinding plates and earthquakes are gradually warping and reshaping Califonia. In a few million years, California will look very different than it does today