The Newport–Inglewood Fault is a
right-lateral strike-slip fault in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
. The fault extends for
from
Culver City
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...
southeast through
Inglewood and other coastal communities to
Newport Beach
Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island, Newport ...
at which point the fault extends east-southeast into the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
where it is known as the
Rose Canyon Fault
The Rose Canyon Fault is a right-lateral strike-slip fault running in a north-south direction through San Diego County, California.Hart, E.W., Bryant, W.A., Wills, C.J., Treiman, J.A., and Kahle, J.E."Summary Report: Fault Evaluation Program, 1987 ...
. The fault can be inferred on the Earth's surface as passing along and through a line of hills extending from
Signal Hill to
Culver City
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...
. The fault has a slip rate of approximately /year
and is predicted to be capable of a 6.0–7.4
magnitude earthquake on the
moment magnitude scale
The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...
. A 2017 study concluded that, together, the Newport–Inglewood Fault and Rose Canyon Fault could produce an earthquake of 7.3 or 7.4 magnitude.
The fault was first identified after a magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck near
Inglewood, California
Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 107,762. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. The city is in the South Bay ...
on June 21, 1920. Due to the lack of earthquake-resistant construction in southern California at this time, this quake caused considerable damage in the Inglewood area and was a preview of what was to come almost 13 years later. The
Long Beach earthquake occurred on March 10, 1933, centered along the southern segment of this fault, and registering a magnitude 6.4; this quake killed 115 people and was the second most deadly earthquake in California history, after the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
. Seventy schools in the
Long Beach
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
and
Compton
Compton may refer to:
Places
Canada
* Compton (electoral district), a former Quebec federal electoral district
* Compton (provincial electoral district), a former Quebec provincial electoral district now part of Mégantic-Compton
* Compton, Que ...
area were destroyed and an additional 120 were heavily damaged by the quake; had this tremor struck during school hours, the death toll would have been much higher, some estimates as high as 1000. In response to the poor performance of school structures, the California legislature passed the
Field Act
The Field Act was one of the first pieces of legislation that mandated earthquake-resistant construction (specifically for schools in California) in the United States. The Field Act had its genesis in the 6.4 magnitude 1933 Long Beach earthquake w ...
in April, mandating earthquake-resistant construction for all new school buildings.
The Newport–Inglewood Fault is part of the larger system of right-lateral strike-slip faults, most prominently the
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is Fault (geology)#Strike-slip fau ...
, which comprise the transform zone which separates the
North American tectonic plate from the
Pacific Plate
The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate.
The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Iza ...
. The irregular hills which occur along the fault trace are a result of deformation of the sedimentary rocks by the faulting; some of the earliest petroleum production in California tap reservoirs formed by the deformation.
In July 2015, Jim Boles, a
University of California at Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...
professor, reported that
helium-3
Helium-3 (3He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (the most common isotope, helium-4, having two protons and two neutrons in contrast). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the ...
was leaking naturally from oil wells up to deep, along a stretch from Los Angeles's Westside to Newport Beach, suggesting that the fault runs deep, though not necessarily changing the earthquake outlook.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
M6.8 Earthquake on the Newport Inglewood Fault (Huntington Beach)–
Southern California Earthquake Center
The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is a collaboration of more than 1,000 scientists across 100 research institutions with a mission to: conduct research on earthquakes in Southern California and elsewhere by gathering data, conductin ...
Newport–Inglewood Fault Zone– Southern California Earthquake Data Center
Earthquake faults in the South Bay – Palos Verdes FaultLate Cenozoic Tectonics of Southern CaliforniaHelium rising through the Newport–Inglewood fault zone*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newport-Inglewood Fault
Seismic faults of California
Natural history of Los Angeles County, California
Natural history of Orange County, California