The Hosgri Fault (also Hosgri Fault Zone, San Gregorio-Hosgri Fault Zone) is an offshore fault zone located near the

Central Coast of California The Central Coast is an area of California, roughly spanning the coastal region between Point Mugu and Monterey Bay. It lies northwest of Los Angeles and south of the San Francisco Bay Area, and includes the rugged, rural, and sparsely populat ...

San Luis Obispo County San Luis Obispo County (), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a county on the Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 282,424. The county seat is San Luis Obispo. Junípero Serra fou ...

. The main fault stretches for about , and is located nearest to the coastal communities of

Cambria Cambria is a name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name for the country, . The term was not in use during the Roman period (when Wales had not come into existence as a distinct entity) or the early medieval period. After the ...

San Simeon San Simeon ( Spanish: ''San Simeón'', meaning "St. Simon") is an unincorporated community on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Its position along State Route 1 is about halfway between Los Angeles and San ...

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, Baywood Park-Los Osos and Avila Beach."Hosgri Fault Zone"
Southern California Earthquake Data Center. Southern California Earthquake Data Center, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2009. The fault system (including its branches) is some long, and is a right-lateral strand of the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental Fault (geology)#Strike-slip faults, right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly through the U.S. state of California. It forms part of the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Paci ...

system.

Characteristics

The Hosgri Fault is a component of the

system. Its movement is primarily reverse

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...

, as well as exhibiting right lateral slip, and is thought to be capable of generating earthquakes of up to magnitude 7.5. The November 4, 1927 Lompoc earthquake (magnitude 7.1) is thought to have occurred (uncertainty) on this fault.

Diablo Canyon Power Plant

Seismologists monitor activity on the Hosgri fault constantly because of its physical proximity to the nuclear

Diablo Canyon Power Plant The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is a nuclear power plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. Following the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2013, Diablo Canyon is now the only operational nu ...

. In fact, the fault lies only miles offshore from the

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...

. More recently in 2008, yet another even closer fault was discovered, the

Shoreline Fault Shoreline Fault is a 25 km long vertical strike-slip fault discovered in 2008 that lies less than a mile from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in California. It is thought to be able to produce quakes up to 6.8 magnitude. The San Luis Obis ...

1 mile from the NPP.

Characteristics

Diablo Canyon Power Plant

References

Further reading