USGS: The odds of a major earthquake hitting California have increased

An image showing shockwaves from an earthquake.

(Image credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

last updated 11 March 2015

The likelihood that California will experience an earthquake of magnitude 8 or higher in the next 30 years has gone up from 4.7 percent to about 7 percent, a new assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey says.

"The new likelihoods are due to the inclusion of possible multi-fault ruptures, where earthquakes are no longer confined to separate, individual faults, but can occasionally rupture multiple faults simultaneously," lead author and U.S. Geological Survey scientist Ned Field told CBS News. "This is a significant advancement in terms of representing a broader range of earthquakes throughout California's complex fault system."

The assessment is part of a new model for earthquake forecasting, and the authors hope it will help people who live on faults better prepare for a quake. "We are fortunate that seismic activity in California has been relatively low over the past century," Southern California Earthquake Center director Tom Jordan told CBS Los Angeles. "But we know that tectonic forces are continually tightening the springs of the San Andreas fault system, making a big quake inevitable."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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