Ask HN: Are thousands of Bay Area workers going to die in a big earthquake?

Re:Ask HN: Are thousands of Bay Area workers going to die in... by godot on Friday May 25, 2018 @04:43PM (#17157779)

That was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. For context, it has been speculated (source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big... ) that the next "really big one" could be in the range of 9.0.

> If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That’s the very big one.

I'm not well-versed in earthquakes, but from what I know the Richter magnitude is logarithmic in scale, I can't really even imagine in my head what a 9.0 quake is like.

I'm glad OP / someone is asking these questions, I often wonder about this myself, being a tech worker in San Francisco.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Are thousands of Bay Area workers going to die in... by icodestuff on Friday May 25, 2018 @06:09PM (#17158433)

This is for the PNW. The Bay Area is south of that. We won't be hit by one that big. "The big one" here will be an 8, not a 9.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Are thousands of Bay Area workers going to die in... by brian-armstrong on Friday May 25, 2018 @07:38PM (#17159075)

There are geological reasons (stiffness of dirt I think) that a big one near the California coast isn't likely to be that significant. The next earthquake will probably be another Loma Prieta. The ground just isn't very likely to transmit the energy far from the epicenter. Also it's the Hayward fault that's likely to go next.

[ Parent | on HN ]