Lying directly along the major San Andreas fault line and countless other faults, California is notorious for its earthquakes. Perhaps the best known being the Great San Fransisco Earthquake at the start of the last century. Since then, the state has felt seemingly constant tremors, ranging from negligible to disastrous. As the Earth continues to experience more common and more devastatingly large earthquakes at an unprecedented rate, the awareness is up in California. On Sunday, three small but significant quakes occurred; two in the Bay Area and one in Los Angeles. No damaged occurred, but lately there have been many similar quakes, raising the possibility for a larger and more destructive one.
With the recent earthquakes of Japan and Haiti, and the VERY recent incident in Nepal, earthquakes are the most prevalent they've ever been in recorded history. While it's probable that every recent one is an isolated incident, it does raise concern for many Californians. Here in Nebraska, there is little direct danger of an earthquake. On the west coast, a 3.5 magnitude one is just a way of life. People can prepare for that. But as those occur more and more rapidly along the Pacific, it does raise some eyebrows as to whether or not the next great quake will be in America. These sporadic and harmless tremors themselves are little threat to the safety of Californians, but as Nepal just found out, all it takes is one shift in the crust to devastate an entire area.
