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Science 13 May 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5724, pp. 966 - 967
DOI: 10.1126/science.1111707
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Perspectives

GEOPHYSICS:
Past and Future Earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault

Ray J. Weldon, Thomas E. Fumal, Glenn P. Biasi, Katherine M. Scharer

The San Andreas fault in Calfornia is one of the best studied earthquake-generating faults in the world. In their Perspective, Weldon et al. discuss recent efforts to construct "rupture scenarios," that is, possible histories of the date, location, and length of fault rupture of past earthquakes on the fault. Existing knowledge of the locations and dates of past earthquakes can be explained by different scenarios, but the authors argue that the evidence favors the hypothesis that the fault breaks in relatively infrequent, large earthquakes. They caution that the current 148-year hiatus since the last big earthquake is likely to end within the next ~50 years with a large rupture or sequence of ruptures spanning a substantial part of the fault.

R. J. Weldon and K. M. Scharer are in the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA. E-mail: ray{at}uoregon.edu; kscharer{at}uoregon.edu T. E. Fumal is with the Earthquake Hazards Team, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA. E-mail: tfumal{at}usgs.gov G. P. Biasi is at the Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA. E-mail: glenn{at}seismo.unr.edu

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