what was the largest southern california earthquake?
409645
Fort Tejon, California \n1857 01 09 16:24 UTC \nMagnitude 7.9\n\nThe magnitude of the Fort Tejon and San Fransisco earthquake are estimated to have been very similiar. Since you asked for the largest SOUTHERN California Earthquake though, the Fort Tejon one would be the corrrect answer.
279201
Proquest<---is the best\nhttp://www.encyclopedia.com/SearchResults.aspx?Q=Earthquake but maybe this
1057941
Drive Interstate Highway 5 from just south of Gilroy California to L.A. and you'll be right on the fault line. The fault also extends into the Pacific where it meets the bottom of the ocean north of San Fransisco. All of these places are of course in California.
883515
Try http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ Thats where I go whenever I want to look up anything on current/recent earthquakes.
1098523
University of Southern California.
140138
marikina fault line!!!
235645
this is a really good website for data on every earthquake that ever happened http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/\n\n21 …1943\n35 …1976\n3   …1986\n11 …1999
699940
The last quake that occurred within two miles of the city of SF was "the Great SF Quake of 1906." (April 18th) The epicenter was 2 miles offshore...I believe.\n\nThe 1989 quake (VERY SCARY!) was actually not centered in SF. It's epicenter was about 10 miles from Santa Cruz. However, it was felt ALL over the bay area. SF was damaged mostly because of landfill liquidation. (October 17th)\n\nThe spooky part is that the 1989 was 7.0/7.1 (debated) magnatude, but the 1906 quake was 7.8/8.3 (debated)! The 7.0 was enough for me! I still get a little jittery...and if I see 5:04pm, it always makes me have flashbacks.
1017344
No.     It is certainly not possible in your lifetime, but could happen in a few tens or hundreds of millions of years (by that time Los Angeles may be much closer to San Francisco since the Pacific Plate has a northward movement in this region).  Los Angeles sits on top of a deep sedimentary basin; basically a several mile deep valley filled with sand, shale, and conglomerates. It also sits on the eastern edge of the Pacific Plate. Just across the plate boundary, which is the San Andreas fault, there has been relatively recent (geologically speaking) volcanic activity in the Mojave Desert, such as Pisgah, Sunshine, Amboy Craters, and the Cima Volcanic Range outside Baker CA. Cima has erupted as recently as 10,000 years before present. Volcanism in the Mojave area is likely because the crust of the North American plate that abuts the Pacific Plate is much thinner in that area. Beneath the San Gabriel Mountain range that borders the San Andreas fault there is a deep root of crust, making the Los Angeles basin safe from any volcanic activity in the near future. \n\nIf you have ever driven over Cajon Pass,the area near the truck weigh station at the top of the pass is near the location of the San Andreas fault, and when you travel north across this fault, you are crossing from the Pacific Tectonic Plate onto the North American Plate. \n\nHere is a paper on the crustal structure of the area:\nhttp://earth.usc.edu/~okaya/pdfs/fuis2001_larse1.pdf.\n\nHere is a National Park Service site that describes the Mojave:\nhttp://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/moja/\n\nThe movie is pure fantasy, and I'm sorry to disappoint you that it is not scientifically based.
485592
The New Madrid Fault Line (aka New Madrid Seismic Zone, Reelfoot Rift)  is a 150 mile fault stretching from Cairo, Illinois (which is right on the state border with Kentucky) to Marked Tree, Arkansas.\n\nThere were some 7.0+ magnitude earthquakes from this fault in a 3-month period of 1811-12, causing the Mississippi River to flow backward and change its course.  The largest was called the New Madrid Earthquake and happened on Feb. 7, 1812 with 7.9 magnitude earthquake and epicenter near New Madrid, Missouri.  There have been numerous 5.0+ from this fault and it is seen as becoming more active.\n\nResearchers currently project a 90% chance of a 6.0 magnitude or greater earthquake by the year 2040.
516486
Small parts of California may fall into the ocean, but what is really happening--and has been happening for millions of years--is that a strip of western California is traveling northwest, relative to the rest of the continent which is moving southeast. The line between them is called the San Andreas Fault, and that's where many of the California earthquakes happen. \n\nI've seen a map that has that strip splitting off to form an island--or a very long penninsula like that by Baja California--in about 50 million years.
681015
San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of northern California at 5:12am on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted magnitude for the earthquake is a moment magnitude (Mw) 7.8; however, other values have been proposed from 7.7 to as high as 8.3 [1]. The mainshock epicenter occurred offshore about 2 miles from the city. It ruptured along the San Andreas Fault both northward and southward for a total length of 296 miles (477 km)[2]. Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada. The earthquake and resulting fire would be remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States, comparable in devastation to the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.\nContents\n[hide]\n\n    * 1 Geology\n    * 2 Subsequent fires\n    * 3 Relocation and housing of displaced\n    * 4 Aftermath & reconstruction\n    * 5 Centennial commemorations\n    * 6 Analysis\n    * 7 References\n    * 8 See also\n    * 9 External links\n\nAt the time, only 478 deaths were reported; the figure was concocted by government officials who felt that reporting the true death toll would hurt real estate prices and efforts to rebuild the city. Furthermore, hundreds of casualties in Chinatown went ignored and unrecorded due to racism at the time. This figure has been revised to today's conservative estimate of at least 3000; some estimates have put it as high as 6000. Most of the deaths occurred in San Francisco itself, but 189 were reported elsewhere across the San Francisco Bay Area. Other places in the Bay Area such as Santa Rosa, San Jose, and Stanford University also suffered severe damage.\nHouses damaged by the earthquake.\nEnlarge\nHouses damaged by the earthquake.\n\nBetween 225,000 and 300,000 people were left homeless out of a population of about 400,000. Half of the refugees fled across the bay to Oakland. Newspapers at the time described Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, the Panhandle, and the beaches between Ingleside and North Beach being covered with makeshift tents.\n\nThe earthquake and fire would leave a long-standing and significant impression on the development of California. At the time of the disaster, San Francisco had been the ninth-largest city in the United States and the largest on the West Coast, with a population of about 410,000. Over a period of 60 years, the city had become the financial, trade and cultural center of the West; operated the busiest port on the West Coast; and was the "gateway to the Pacific", through which growing US economic and military power was projected into the Pacific and Asia. Over 80% of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire. Though San Francisco would rebuild quickly, the disaster would divert trade, industry and population growth south to Los Angeles, which during the 20th century would become the largest and most important urban area in the West. However, the 1908 Lawson Report, a study of the 1906 quake, showed that the very same San Andreas Fault which had caused the disaster in San Francisco ran close to Los Angeles as well.\n\nThe earthquake was the first natural disaster of its magnitude to be documented by photography and motion picture footage. Furthermore, it occurred at a time when the science of seismology was blossoming. The overall cost of the damage from the earthquake was estimated at the time to be around $400 million.\n[edit]\n\nGeology\n\nThe 1906 San Francisco earthquake was caused by a slip on the San Andreas Fault. This fault runs the length of California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino to the north, a distance of about 800 miles (1287 km). The earthquake ruptured the northern third of the fault for a distance of 296 miles (477 km). The maximum observed surface displacement was about 20 feet (6 m); however, geodetic measurements indicate displacements of up to 28 feet (8.5 m) [3].\n\nA strong foreshock
1026585
Define "low", "medium", "high", and "very high".\n\nTransform boundaries are characterized by strike-sllip faults, often of great length (e.g., the San Andreas fault in California, the Alpine Fault in New Zeland, or the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey).  When large segments of such strike-slip fault "unzip", very large earthquakes result.\n\nThe *largest* earthquakes, however, are associated with convergent plate boundaries.  A look at the list of the largest recorded earthquakes (see source), shows that most are caused by slip along faults associated with subduction zones, not transform boundaries.
460543
Pretty much the entire city rests on the Hayward Fault Zone, so I'd say everywhere. Which isn't to say that the entire place will collapse due to Earthquakes, but it is on a fault line so there will be seismic activity.
668982
San Francisco Earthquake History 1880-1994\nToo many for me to list them for you...hope this is what you were looking for. :)
334963
i was 9 yrs old when i experienced my first major earthquake. i thought that the earth would swallow me alive. worst disaster? it's gotta be an earthquake
1146968
the san andreas fault which sits right below the western part of california will eventually fall due to a massive earthquake ,.................dont start packing yet  according to some geologist we talking about 100-175000 yrs from now