California “Locked & Loaded” Ready for the Big One?

California Quake

The LA Times is reporting that scientists are now coming out and saying that the San Andreas Fault System is “locked and loaded” ready for the big one. The last “big one” was 1857. Effectively, the north portion moves about 16 feet ANNUALLY. The southern portion is locked and has not moved to catch up. When this gives way, you get the big one. The history of big quakes in California are provided by the USGS.

California Earthquakes 1812-20141857 … 7.9
1872 … 7.4
1906 … 7.8
1927 … 7.1
1940 … 7.1
1952 … 7.3
1992 … 7.3
1999 … 7.1
2010 … 7.2


This is an entirely different perspective which we warned turned up beginning in March 2016. This chart shows, not the intensity of individual quakes, but total activity during that year. Above is a table of just the big quakes over 7.0. We can see that there are 9 major events within a 153-year period. The average cyclical frequency is very close to the 8.6 since this is one major event every 17 years (17.2). Yet they are dispersed according to intensity (volatility in market terms). When we plot the total activity on an accumulative annual basis, then we can begin to see the intensity. The peak in risk for intensity appears to be 2024-2025, the next peak in the Business Cycle. This is roughly 8.6 years from March 2016. Therefore, we should start to see a lot more activity building on the Ring of Fire from this period onward. I hope this answers all the questions coming in on this topic.

 

 

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