Faults in the Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area is cut by a complex group of faults that together, accommodate the relative motion between the Pacific and North American plates. Most of the faults move by a so-called 'stick-slip' mechanism that causes the earthquakes shown below:

Six months of Bay Area seismicity (1995)

From: Parsons, T., and Zoback, M. L., Three-dimensional upper crustal velocity structure beneath San Francisco Peninsula, California, J. Geophys. Res. v. 102, p. 5473-5490.