Could the plate tetonic theory have to do with the rumour that california is gonna fall into the ocean?......and could that really happen?

-- andrea gibbs (agibbs@oswego.edu), December 05, 2002

Answers

Except for beaches and sea cliffs where erosion is eating away at the coast, California is not going to fall into the ocean. Indeed, the history of California is one of accretion of exotic continental terranes. That is to say, California is getting bigger, not smaller. On the other hand, western California, on a line from the Gulf of California through Marin county, is moving northwest while the rest of the state moves generally due west. That's because the two parts ride on different plates, the Pacific (western part) and the North American (the rest). One could speculate that eventually the northwest travelling slice could become more widely separated from the rest of the state, perhaps by a longer gulf of California.

-- peter matt (peter@mattbrothers.com), October 10, 2004.