The San Cayetano Fault is an east-west trending

thrust fault A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. If ...

Ventura County Ventura County () is a County (United States), county in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, California ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and 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 populous urban a ...

. It stretches for , north of the city of Ventura, near the

Topatopa Mountains The Topatopa Mountains are a mountain range in Ventura County, California, north of Ojai, Santa Paula, and Fillmore. They are part of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California. Etymology A name for the mountains was first inscribed within the ...

, Piru, Fillmore,

Santa Paula Santa Paula ( Spanish for " St. Paula") is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. Situated amid the orchards of the Santa Clara River Valley, the city advertises itself to tourists as the "Citrus Capital of the World". Santa P ...

, Sulphur Springs, and

Ojai Ojai ( ; Chumash: ''’Awhaỳ'') is a city in Ventura County, California. Located in the Ojai Valley, it is northwest of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara. The valley is part of the east–west trending Western Transverse Ranges and is ...

Geology

The last known

surface rupture In seismology, surface rupture (or ground rupture, or ground displacement) is the visible offset of the ground surface when an earthquake rupture along a fault affects the Earth's surface. Surface rupture is opposed by buried rupture, where th ...

was less than 5,000 years ago. Recent research indicates that the San Cayetano fault may have been the source of the December 21, 1812 earthquake. Depending on location, the fault has an estimated slip rate between . The recurrence rate between events is uncertain, but if the fault is associated with the 1812 event, it may be able to produce earthquakes approaching 6.5 – 7.3 in magnitude.

References

External links

San Cayetano Fault
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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 ...

{{California Faults Seismic faults of California Geology of Ventura County, California Fillmore, California Ojai, California Santa Paula, California Topatopa Mountains Plate tectonics