Los Angeles Is Sliding North

Did you know that California is drifting? Not into the ocean... but slowly sliding north.

Los Angeles and San Francisco sit on opposite sides of one of the most famous faults on

Earth. The San Andreas Fault is a transform boundary, where tectonic plates

grind sideways instead of crashing together. Los Angeles sits on the Pacific Plate, which is slowly

moving north about one to two inches per year. Over millions of years,

that motion adds up, slowly dragging Southern California toward Northern

California. This same motion built stress that snapped during the 1906 San Francisco

earthquake. You can actually see the movement today — roads, streams,