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Plate Tectonics
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Each scenario is about fifteen million years into the future, and each assumes that the Pacific Plate will continue to move northwest at about 2.0 inches per year relative to the interior of North America.
In scenario 1, the San Andreas fault is the sole locus of motion. Baja California and coastal California shear away from the rest of the continent to form a long, skinny island. A short ferry ride across the San Andreas Strait connects LA to San Francisco.
In scenario 2, all of California we
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Volcanologists have a tendency to drift westward in the United States because that's where the action is tectonically. North and Central America occupy the western portion of a big slab of the earth's crust known as the North American plate, which is shaped roughly like an inverted triangle. The bottom of the triangle is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean halfway between South America and Africa. The top two corners are north of Siberia and northwest of Greenland. This piece of the earth's crus
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