Q 01/05

The San Andreas Fault's plates slide past each other about as fast as what grows on your body?

A) Head hair

B) Eyelashes

C) Fingernails

D) Wisdom teeth

Answer · why

C) Fingernails

Fingernails grow at about the same pace as the plates move, a few centimetres a year. Over millions of years that crawl has carried rocks hundreds of ...

Q 02/05

Which city west of the San Andreas Fault is riding the Pacific Plate slowly toward San Francisco?

A) Los Angeles

B) Sacramento

C) Bakersfield

D) San Jose

Answer · why

A) Los Angeles

Los Angeles sits west of the fault, so it travels with the Pacific Plate while San Francisco stays on the continental side. In millions of years the t...

Q 03/05

In Superman (1978), which villain targets the San Andreas Fault to sink California's coast?

A) General Zod

B) Lex Luthor

C) Brainiac

D) Darkseid

Answer · why

B) Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor has bought up cheap desert, so sinking everything west of the fault would turn his land into prime coastline. One of his two missiles is se...

Q 04/05

Despite the sinking-California myth, which way does land west of the San Andreas Fault really move?

A) Due west

B) Southwest

C) Due south

D) Northwest

Answer · why

D) Northwest

Northwest is the heading, and the motion is horizontal: the two sides slide past each other, so there is nowhere for California to fall. The coast is ...

Q 05/05

When the San Andreas Fault ruptured in April 1906, what did most of the damage to San Francisco?

A) Fires

B) Floods

C) Mudslides

D) Sinkholes

Answer · why

A) Fires

Fires did the worst of it: ruptured gas mains fed more than 30 blazes that burned for four days and nights. Up to 95 percent of the destruction is bla...