Final Blog

     Along with the wonderful weather and beach, San Diego's physical geography is different than many other places. Due to colliding tectonic plates, San Diego experiences many earthquakes and mountains, some unlike any other.

Southern California is the only place that has two tectonic plates going against each other.

    One of San Diego's unique geography is its tectonic plates. Southern California lies on the Pacific tectonic plate, which is different than much of the United States. But, even though Southern San Diego lies on the Pacific plate, other parts of California lie on the Northern plate. California having two different tectonic plates creates a sliding boundary. This sliding boundary is caused because of the San Andreas Fault, This has made a split in California and has caused the two tectonic plates to slowly grind against eachother and slide past each other a little every year. This fault also causes many minor earthquakes and half of the major earthquakes to happen in the region. Along with earthquakes, sinkholes and landslides also occur because of the tectonic plates clashing against each other. 

This landslide occured in Laguna Beach and destroyed up to 11 homes.

San Diego in 10,000 years, 1,000,000 years, and 100,000,000 years in the future

    There is a big hypothesis that in the future California will experience a major earthquake and will break off and sink under water but, that is not true. The only way this could happen is if the earthquake had a magnitude of 10.5 and the San Andreas was ten times longer than the 800 miles it is. But, I believe having two plates sliding past each other little by little every year will in future cause a change in the geographic location and shape of the state of California. The San Andreas Fault, has already split California into two, in a sense, with the North American plate sliding down and the Pacific Plate sliding up, Because of the plates clashing and grinding together, many earthquakes erupt throughout the region, that sometimes cause landslides. It is said that with every year the rate of slippage with the plates are an average of 1.4 inches. Therefore if this rate of slippage was to continue in the same pace, in 10,000 years the slippage would have resulted in 14,000 inches between the two tectonic plates. In 1,000,000 years, the rate of slippage will result in 1,400,000 inches. Lastly, in 100,000,000 years, if the rate of slippage continues at 1.4 inches every year, then it will be 2,209 miles of slippage that happened. At this point it will be view-able by the normal eye the change of the geographic location of California. Therefore, the idea that California will break off due to some earthquake and sink, is not true. However, instead of breaking off due to an earthquake, California can split and drift away from the US because of the tectonic plates grinding in different directions. As a result, California may drift far enough to be underwater, but to see it drift underwater is something that could happen in 100,000,000 and plus years.

     The geography of San Diego will continue to change in time because of nature/ human made changes. However, with the world evolving the future can change in a positive or negative way, meaning what we predict today can be wrong in the future. 

References

Oskin, By Becky. "What Is The San Andreas Fault?" LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 01 May 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.

"Earthquake Facts & Earthquake Fantasy." Earthquake Facts & Earthquake Fantasy. USGS, 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.