May 16 - 2018 Bodega Bay, California

We are in earthquake (jordskælv) country. As we wrote on Monday, we have been very close to one. Today, May 16, we went to Point Reyes National Shoreline, to learn a little more about earthquakes.

 

Point Reyes is on the San Andreas fault line (forkastning). Point Reyes is about half the size of Mille Lacs Lake (på størrelse med Langeland). It is a peninsula (halvø). But a moving one. According to the National Park Service it is currently docked (forankret) at the city of Olema 😊. It is on a different tectonic plate (plade) than the rest of the U.S. Over the last 20 million years it has moved from just north of Los Angeles to where it is today – just north of San Francisco (350 miles/ 550 km)!!

The area around the San Andreas fault is very unstable. The San Francisco area often has earthquakes. Luckily, most are small (like the one that occurred on Monday).
There was one very famous earthquake in the San Francisco area. It happened on April 18, 1906. It was a magnitude 7.8 quake. It lasted 45 seconds. It started a big fire. Up to 5000 people were killed and there was $400 million (ca. 2,5 milliard kroner) in damages. In todays money it would be around $10 billion (60 milliarder kroner).

 

 

During the earthquake, Point Reyes moved up to 20 feet. This fence (although replaced by a newer one over time), separated 16 feet (næsten 5 meter) during the earthquake, and is one of the few remaining signs in the area of the 1906 quake.

The continuing fence in the background to the right

This is the mended scar of the crack from 1906, on the San Andreas Fault.
(her var revnen i jorden efter jordskælvet I 1906)

 

 

Some might also remember the 1989 earthquake – called Loma Prieta. That was also near San Francisco. We remember seeing pictures of the freeway bridge that collapsed.

At the end of Point Reyes there is a colony of Elephant Seals (søelefanter).
A huge animal that can weigh up to 1000-4000 pounds (ca. 500-1800 kg).
From the closest point we could get to them, they looked more like dead fish washed ashore ☹.



This one from the visitors center

The area was surrounded by water. And there were more wild flowers.

 

The landscape around the fault looked like it was wrinkled.

 

Any Alfred Hitchcock fans? Bodega Bay is the town, where the movie “The Birds” was filmed. When Mary was young, she watched this movie MANY times. The plot of the movie is that the birds in the town start attacking the people. Like all of Hitchcock’s movies, it is VERY scary. There is a guide book available for those wanting to find the sights used in the film. We decided to just find one – the school house. We also kept our eyes open for “flocking” birds 😊

 

We decided to go for one more sunset, before we leave this beautiful place. There were many clouds, but just before the sun went down, it peeked through the clouds. STUNNING!!!!!!!

Written by Mary and JJ