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San Andres Movie Critical Report

San Andreas Movie destroying S.F. is great fun, bad science.

The latest Big Disaster movie is wiping out San Francisco this is at monster earthquake

and tsunami swallows the city and drowns the Golden Gate Bridge all in less than two

hours on the silver screen. To the real experts on quakes and their effects the

geologists and emergency specialists who watched it at a Friday night showing

sponsored by the citys Office of Emergency Services the film is a hoot, and crammed

with more ersatz seismic science than Hollywood has ever before conjured up.

But the experts loved it and laughed as the movies star, chief firefighter Dwayne

Johnson (the Rock), wrestles with his official helicopter, steals a pickup truck, flies a
fixed-wing plane and finally uses a million dollar speedboat to outrun a tsunamis

smashing crest and find safety beyond Mile Rock.

But hes headed the wrong way, geophysicist Ross Stein of the U.S. Geological

Survey said with a laugh. He shouldnt try to beat a tsunami he should turn the boat

around and head inland into the nearest slough. Its calmer there.

And a really big tsunami is impossible in California, because the San Andreas is what

geologists call a strike slip fault and it would inevitably rupture sideways in a real

earthquake; it couldnt do more than make ripples. But the films biggest blooper, is

giving a magnitude of 9.6 to the quake that topples every skyscraper in San Francisco,

destroys Los Angeles, and opens a horrendously deep chasm across the verdant

landscape while frightened hordes flee crashing buildings in both cities. Too big for a

real San Andreas fault, and only a subduction zone quake like the ones in the Pacific

Northwest and Alaska could open even a small rift in the ground certainly not a huge

canyon around here.

Fortunately, the film San Andreas is pure fiction, featuring the levels of exaggeration we

are all used to from film makers who are, ironically, also based in southern California.

Even so, in all probability, the San Andreas is likely to generate a significant earthquake

in the not too distant future. When it arrives, the damage will be significant and southern

California will be massively affected. But Californians are no strangers to these events

and the infrastructure of the state, in recent times, has been designed with earthquake

protection in mind. Forget tsunamis and deep chasms opening up, but do expect violent

shaking, building damage, fires and widespread economic impacts as the region is out

of action for potentially a long period of time.

 Work Cites

"Home | Library of Congress." The Library of Congress. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.

"Main Page." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Apr. 2017. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.

"San Andreas." San Andreas Clothing Cheats Pc. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.

Images Sources

San Andreas Fault Homepage: Information, photos, maps, fault location and more! N.p., n.d. Web.

25 Apr. 2017.