Monday, October 20, 2008

Hayward Fault Zone - San Francisco

The Hayward Fault Zone is a geologic fault zone capable of generating significantly destructive earthquakes. About 60 kilometers long, it lies mainly along the western base of the hills on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It runs through densely-populated areas, including the cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, Hayward, Fremont, and San Jose.
The Hayward Fault is parallel to its more famous (and much longer) westerly neighbor, the San Andreas Fault, which lies offshore and through the San Francisco peninsula. To the east of the Hayward lies the Calaveras Fault. The Hayward Fault merges with these two fault systems south of San Francisco Bay.
North of San Pablo Bay, and somewhat offset from the Hayward Fault is the Rodgers Creek Fault, considered by many to be an extension of the Hayward Fault Zone. Another fault further north, the Maacama Fault, is also considered to be part of the "Hayward Fault subsystem".
While the San Andreas Fault is the principal transform boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, the Hayward Fault takes up a share of the overall motion between the plates.

San Andreas - San Francisco

The San Andreas Fault is a geologic transform fault that runs a length of roughly 800 miles (1,300 km) through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal motion). It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.
The fault was first identified in Northern California by UC Berkeley geology professor Andrew Lawson in 1895 and named by him after a small lake which lies in a linear valley formed by the fault just south of San Francisco, the Laguna de San Andreas. Following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, it was Lawson who also discovered that the San Andreas Fault stretched well southward into Southern California.

1906 - earthquake - San Francisco

At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and Northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.

Angel Island - San Francisco

Angel Island is a hilly, grass and forest-covered island, the largest in San Francisco Bay. It is located one mile from the Tiburon Peninsula. The park covers 740 acres and is 788 feet high at the top of Mt. Livermore. It provides spectacular views of Marin County, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate, and the entire Bay Area. In addition to recreational facilities (hiking, biking, camping, boating), it is rich in historical significance.
web: http://www.angelisland.org/

San Francisco Bureau

For nearly 100 years the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau has worked on behalf of its members to promote San Francisco as the destination of choice for conventions and leisure travel. The Bureau is an outgrowth of the San Francisco Convention and Tourist League, a non-profit, local business association founded in 1909 to reclaim the City's position as a world-class destination in the wake of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

San Francisco - the city and county

The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 14th most populous city in the United States, with a 2007 estimated population of 764,976. Among the most densely populated cities in the country, San Francisco is part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area, which is home to more than 7.2 million people. The city is located at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean to the west, San Francisco Bay to the east, and the Golden Gate to the north. (from wikipedia)

Treasure Island - San Francisco

Treasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland. It is connected by a small isthmus to Yerba Buena Island. It was created in 1936 & 1937 for the Golden Gate International Exposition of fill dredged from the bay. According to the United States Census Bureau, Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island together have a land area of 2.334 km² (0.901 sq mi) with a total population of 1,453 as of the 2000 census. The island is named after the novel Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in San Francisco from 1879 to 1880.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Treasure Island's old aircraft hangars served as sound stages used in film and television productions. In 1988, Treasure Island stood in for the Berlin airport in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Numerous pictures starring Robin Williams were filmed on the island, including Flubber, What Dreams May Come, Patch Adams and Bicentennial Man. Sigourney Weaver's character in the thriller Copycat lived in an impressive private compound on the island. For three years it served as the site of Comedy Central's Battlebots television show.
(from wikipedia)