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An earthquake registering 7.9 Mw ruptured part of the San Andreas Fault in central and southern California.
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1857 Fort Tejon earthquake
Earthquake in California, United States
The 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake occurred at about 8:20 a.m. on January 9 in central and Southern California. One of the largest recorded earthquakes in the United States, with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9, it ruptured the southern part of the San Andreas Fault for a…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Moment magnitude scale
Measure of earthquake size, in terms of the energy released
The moment magnitude scale is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment. Mw was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori. Similar to the local magnitude/Richter scale (ML ) defined by Charles Francis Richter in 1935, it uses a…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
San Andreas Fault
Geologic feature in California
The San Andreas Fault is a continental right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly 1,200 kilometers (750 mi) through the U.S. state of California. It forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific plate and the North American plate. Traditionally, for…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)