Media Information
 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection
Title:
Earth's San Andreas Fault
Explanation:
The Earth's surface is broken. Cracks in the Earth's crust known as faults [ http://www.seismo.b…] can run for hundreds of kilometers. These faults are frequently [ http://www.seismo.b…] the sites of major [ http://wwwneic.cr.u…] earthquakes [ http://www.worldboo…] as the tectonic plates [ http://www.seismo.u…] that cover the surface of the Earth shift. Pictured above [ http://photojournal…] is San Andreas Fault in California [ http://www.state.ca…], one of the longest and most active faults [ http://ghtmaps01.cr…]. Visible [ http://epod.usra.ed…] as the linear feature to the right of the mountains, San Andreas Fault [ http://pubs.usgs.go…] reaches 15 kilometers deep and is about 20 million years old. The above exaggerated-height image [ http://www.jpl.nasa…] was created by combining radar deployed by the Space Shuttle Endeavour [ http://www.ksc.nasa…] in February [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] with a true-color Landsat [ http://geo.arc.nasa…] picture. Along San Andreas Fault [ http://www.agu.org/…], the titanic Pacific Plate [ http://www.geol.ucs…] is shifting [ http://www.earth.nw…] relative to the huge North American Plate [ http://www.geol.ucs…] by an average of a few centimeters per year. At that rate, in a few million years, the Earth's surface [ http://vulcan.wr.us…] will look quite different [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] than it does today.
Credit and Copyright:
SRTM [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], JPL [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]
keyword:
Earth
keyword:
San Andreas Fault
keyword:
Earthquakes
facet_where:
California
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
Space Shuttle Endeavour
facet_what:
SRTM
facet_what:
Landsat
facet_what:
Space Shuttle Orbiter
original url:
http://antwrp.gsfc.…
UID:
SPD-APOD-ap001207

Earth's San Andreas Fault
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