Serious question (don’t flame me for asking) about The Big One...
Don’t all of these smaller quakes take pressure off the various fault lines - which theoretically should prevent a really epic earthquake (worse than Northridge) from happening?
Or doesn’t it quite work that way?
Grandfather was born and raised in California. He was of the opinion that “as long as there are small quakes there won’t be a big one.”
But there are a lot of faults, and relieving pressure on one puts pressure on another. There’s nothing can be done about the movement of the tectonic plates.
One possible (some say probable) 7.8 scenario: https://youtu.be/nvltp9Nf5T4?list=PLfSGTUJx7YsZ-wAQH9XXtQZKFyQ6LBZDx
Seismologists saynits not true that little earthquakes always prevent a big one, nor is it true that little earthquakes are pre-shocks of a coming big one. Then seismologists tend to say that they just don’t know.
But it’s ok, we have an app now that can predict an earthquake as long ahead as 20 seconds. So we’re good, right?