This page includes both a list of earthquakes and a map with those earthquakes' locations. Choose an earthquake from either the list or the map and click on that earthquake to get more information. We all know that earthquakes are a fact of life in California and the San Francisco Bay Area. This map shows the expected intensity of earthquake shaking in San Francisco, based on the type of underlying geologic material. If you want to see a detailed map of another Bay Area city, click here to go to the ABAG site.
Earthquakes are strong evidence that pieces of Earth shift around with respect to other pieces.
In the 1950s and 60s, geoscientists examined many types of evidence as they tried to figure out a theory to systematically explain this mobility. We will examine some other types of evidence in class. One additional example is illustrated below. This map shows seafloor ages in color-coding. Ages refer to the time when basaltic lava flowed from volcanoes to form the seafloor.