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How did the San Andreas Fault contribute to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?
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Pacific mountain system
Coast Mountains along the Torres Channel, an arm of Atlin Lake, northwestern British Columbia, Canada.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was caused by a massive slip along the San Andreas Fault, a transform fault where the Pacific Plate moves laterally relative to the North American Plate.12
During the event, the fault slipped along a segment approximately 270 miles (430 km) long, stretching from San Juan Bautista to Humboldt County. This sudden movement released accumulated tectonic stress, generating the magnitude 7.9 earthquake that caused severe destruction in San Francisco and surrounding communities. Geologic studies of this specific event were instrumental in developing the theory of elastic rebound, which explains how the release of strain along faults produces the shaking associated with earthquakes.1