The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern
California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18 with an estimated
moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI
(Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North
Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of
the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in the
city and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died. Over
80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed. The events are
remembered as one of the worst and deadliest earthquakes in the
history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss
of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on
the lists of American disasters.The San Andreas Fault is a continental
transform fault that forms part of the tectonic boundary between the
Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The strike-slip fault is
characterized by mainly lateral motion in a dextral sense, where the
western (Pacific) plate moves northward relative to the eastern (North
American) plate. This fault runs the length of California from the
Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north, a distance of
about 810 miles (1,300 km). The maximum observed surface displacement
was about 20 feet (6 m); geodetic measurements show displacements of
up to 28 feet (8.5 m).The 1906 earthquake preceded the development of
the Richter magnitude scale by three decades. The most widely accepted
estimate for the magnitude of the quake on the modern moment magnitude
scale is 7.9; values from 7.7 to as high as 8.3 have been proposed.
According to findings published in the Journal of Geophysical
Research, severe deformations in the earth's crust took place both
before and after the earthquake's impact. Accumulated strain on the
faults in the system was relieved during the earthquake, which is the
supposed cause of the damage along the 450 kilometres (280 mi) long
segment of the San Andreas plate boundary. The 1906 rupture propagated
both northward and southward for a total of 296 miles (476 km).
Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as
central Nevada. 1906 San Francisco earthquake Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter