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1906 Earthquake Ground Motion, as seen from Palo Alto

To better understand the distribution of shaking and damage that accompanied the great 1906 earthquake, seismologists have constructed new computer models to recreate the ground motions. The simulations show how ground moved on the two sides of the San Andreas fault and how seismic waves radiated away from the fault to produce the shaking. The earthquake, which began 2 miles offshore from the City of San Francisco, ultimately grew to cause shaking and damage along more than 300 miles of the San Andreas Fault. This movie portrays the shaking over a 155 mile by 70 mile area covering the San Francisco Bay region.

This is only one in a series of movies the USGS has made for the entire Bay Area. See this remarkable set of visualizations by visiting the USGS 1906 Ground Motion Simulations page. The model developed by Greg Beroza, Seok Goo, and Paul Segall was an important ingredient in the development of these animations.