Earthquakes near Los Angeles

Los Angeles straddles a knot of active faults where the Pacific and North American plates grind past each other. The San Andreas Fault runs about 50 km northeast of downtown, but the faults directly under the basin — the Newport–Inglewood, Hollywood, and the blind-thrust Puente Hills system — are the ones capable of shaking the city hardest.

The region is seismically busy, and moderate events are a matter of when, not if. The M6.7 Northridge earthquake of January 1994 struck on a previously unmapped blind thrust, causing tens of billions in damage — a reminder that L.A.'s most dangerous faults can be the ones you can't see at the surface.

Much of the basin sits on deep sedimentary fill that amplifies and prolongs shaking, so even quakes centered well outside the city can be strongly felt across the metro.