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The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California is a novel by Curt Gentry, published in 1968 by G.P. Putnam's Sons. The novel incorporates an extensive essay on the history and culture of California from the vantage point of a future date when the state has disappeared.
The novel describes, in retrospect, the history and culture of California from its earliest days, and its influence on the rest of the United States and the world when - after an unspecified date in 1969 - the state suffers a Richter magnitude 9 earthquake and the populous coastal regions west of the San Andreas Fault sink into the Pacific Ocean. This is in accordance with a fictional prediction by the real life psychic Edgar Cayce.
The catastrophic quake itself is covered immediately prior to the last chapter of the novel. The quake is described as starting north of Point Arena, California and continuing southward as a large rupture on the San Andreas Fault, until it stops near Taft, California. Pausing for moments, a second larger quake resumes, continuing southward through the Los Angeles, California area, and into the Salton Sea, where the rupture inexplicably turns towards San Diego, California and back into the Pacific Ocean where the quake ends. As the quake progresses, various events (both large and small scale) are described in detail. After this event, the narrative switches to "present tense" news radio and television coverage of the event using a literary convention of "changing the dial / channel" from one news report to another, to cover the disaster: The Central Valley is inundated by the sea, the Embarcadero Freeway and Coit Tower have collapsed, along with the Oakland Bay Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge remains standing initially. Los Angeles is in ruins. As this narrative closes, two more disasters occur nearly simultaneously: The Oroville Dam bursts, and in the twilight of the day, a passenger jet over San Bernardino is pulled out of the sky by turbulence, as the pilot tries to describe the sight of the San Andreas Fault splitting open in the dusk (and as is made clear in the final chapter, the pilot was witnessing Southern California slide into the sea).
The novel's epilogue lists what the world must now do without, due to this event, especially the large percentage of agricultural products that come from California. The bulk of the novel consists of the description of three regions: The north, The Central Valley, and the south. An account of the 1966 California governor's electoral campaign is central to the narrative.
Also discussed in detail are the 1965 Watts riots, in detail gleaned from then-recent news reports.
As a result of its publication, some religious believers in the Los Angeles region decided to move away, in fear of its fictional events actually occurring. The turmoil surrounding the book's publication became known as the "Great California Earthquake Scare".[ citation needed ]
An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to propel objects and people into the air, and wreak destruction across entire cities. The seismicity, or seismic activity, of an area is the frequency, type, and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time. The word tremor is also used for non-earthquake seismic rumbling.
The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly 1,200 kilometers (750 mi) through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). The fault divides into three segments, each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk. The slip rate along the fault ranges from 20 to 35 mm /yr.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at 5:04 p.m. local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of the San Andreas Fault System and was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. With an Mw magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), the shock was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The Loma Prieta segment of the San Andreas Fault System had been relatively inactive since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake until two moderate foreshocks occurred in June 1988 and again in August 1989.
The 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake occurred at about 8:20 a.m. on January 9 in central and Southern California. One of the largest recorded earthquakes in the United States, with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9, it ruptured the southern part of the San Andreas Fault for a length of about 225 miles, between Parkfield and Wrightwood.
The Elsinore Fault Zone is a large right-lateral strike-slip geological fault structure in Southern California. The fault is part of the trilateral split of the San Andreas fault system and is one of the largest, though quietest faults in Southern California.
The 2003 San Simeon earthquake struck at 11:15 PST on December 22 on the Central Coast of California, about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of San Simeon. Probably centered in the Oceanic fault zone within the Santa Lucia Mountains, it was caused by thrust faulting and the rupture propagated southeast from the hypocenter for 12 miles (19 km).
The 1992 Landers earthquake occurred on June 28 with an epicenter near the town of Landers, California. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).
The 1949 Queen Charlotte Islands earthquake struck the sparsely populated Queen Charlotte Islands and the Pacific Northwest coast at 8:01 p.m. PDT on August 21. The shock had a surface wave magnitude of 8.1 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VIII (Severe).
The San Jacinto Fault Zone (SJFZ) is a major strike-slip fault zone that runs through San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, and Imperial Counties in Southern California. The SJFZ is a component of the larger San Andreas transform system and is considered to be the most seismically active fault zone in the area. Together they relieve the majority of the stress between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.
The Puente Hills Fault is an active geological fault that is located in the Los Angeles Basin in California. The thrust fault was discovered in 1999 and runs about 40 km (25 mi) in three discrete sections from the Puente Hills region in the southeast to just south of Griffith Park in the northwest. The fault is known as a blind thrust fault, as the fault plane does not extend to the surface. Large earthquakes on the fault are relatively infrequent but computer modeling has indicated that a major event could have substantial impact in the Los Angeles area. The fault is now thought to be responsible for one moderate earthquake in 1987 and another light event that took place in 2010, with the former causing considerable damage and deaths.
The 2010 Baja California earthquake occurred on April 4 with a moment magnitude of 7.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The shock originated at 15:40:41 local time south of Guadalupe Victoria, Baja California, Mexico.
The Brawley Seismic Zone (BSZ), also known as the Brawley fault zone, is a predominantly extensional tectonic zone that connects the southern terminus of the San Andreas Fault with the Imperial Fault in Southern California. The BSZ is named for the nearby town of Brawley in Imperial County, California, and the seismicity there is characterized by earthquake swarms.
The 1940 El Centro earthquake occurred at 21:35 Pacific Standard Time on May 18 in the Imperial Valley in southeastern Southern California near the international border of the United States and Mexico. It had a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum perceived intensity of X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale. It was the first major earthquake to be recorded by a strong-motion seismograph located next to a fault rupture. The earthquake was characterized as a typical moderate-sized destructive event with a complex energy release signature. It was the strongest recorded earthquake to hit the Imperial Valley, and caused widespread damage to irrigation systems and led to the deaths of nine people.
The 1948 Desert Hot Springs earthquake occurred on December 4 at 3:43 p.m. Pacific Standard Time with a moment magnitude of 6.4 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII. The shock was felt from the central coast of California in the north, and to Baja California in the south, and came at a time when earthquake research in southern California was being resumed following the Second World War. It was one of two events in the 20th century that have occurred near a complex region of the southern San Andreas Fault System where it traverses the San Gorgonio Pass and the northern Coachella Valley. Damage was not severe, but some serious injuries occurred, and aftershocks continued until 1957.
The 1892 Laguna Salada earthquake occurred at 23:20 Pacific Standard Time on February 23. It had an estimated moment magnitude of 7.1–7.2 and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe). The shock was centered near the Mexico–United States border and takes its name from a large dry lake bed in Baja California, Mexico. There were no reported casualties, but the event affected the then largely-uninhabited areas of northern Mexico and Southern California.
The 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake occurred at 16:16 Pacific Daylight Time on 15 October just south of the Mexico–United States border. It affected Imperial Valley in Southern California and Mexicali Valley in northern Baja California. The earthquake had a relatively shallow hypocenter and caused property damage in the United States estimated at US$30 million. The irrigation systems in the Imperial Valley were badly affected, but no deaths occurred. It was the largest earthquake to occur in the contiguous United States since the 1971 San Fernando earthquake eight years earlier.
The 1812 San Juan Capistrano earthquake, also known as the Wrightwood earthquake, occurred on December 8 at 15:00 UTC in Alta California. At the time, this was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire. Damage occurred at several of the missions in the region of Pueblo de Los Ángeles, including Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Juan Capistrano, where 40 parishioners were killed during the collapse of a church at an early morning service. Tree ring and paleoseismic evidence show that there is a strong likelihood that the earthquake originated along the Mojave segment of the San Andreas Fault near Wrightwood, but other faults have been suggested as the cause.
The 1838 San Andreas earthquake is believed to be a rupture along the northern part of the San Andreas Fault in June 1838. It affected approximately 100 km of the fault, from the San Francisco Peninsula to the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a strong earthquake, with an estimated moment magnitude of 6.8 to 7.2, making it one of the largest known earthquakes in California. The region was lightly populated at the time, although structural damage was reported in San Francisco, Oakland, and Monterey. It is unknown whether there were fatalities. Based on geological sampling, the fault created approximately 1.5 meters of slip.
The 1987 Superstition Hills earthquakes were a pair of earthquakes Mw 6.2 and 6.6 that rattled the Imperial Valley of California. The earthquakes caused damage to places in California and Mexico, and was felt as far as Las Vegas and Phoenix. Both main shocks were larger than the deadly earthquake that struck Los Angeles on October 1, which was a magnitude 5.9.
The 1812 Ventura earthquake occurred on the morning of December 21 at UTC 19:00 or 10:00 Pacific Standard Time (PST), on Monday. The 7.1–7.5 magnitude earthquake had a Mercalli intensity scale rating of VIII (Severe), and its resulting tsunami caused great implications to what was at the time a territory of the Spanish Empire, where Catholic missions were settling, present-day Santa Barbara and Ventura County, in California. One person was killed as a result of the earthquake. At the time of the earthquake, the region was recovering from another earthquake on the 8th of December the same year.
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