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TheHeretic -> RE: California overdue for major earthquake (8/14/2007 6:27:13 PM)
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You are very welcome, Sinergy. [:D]
The Loma Prieta quake was major, Northridge was strong. These are specific terms when discussing earthquakes (it's in the link). "The Big One," is more of a public awareness, marketing phrase.
What I think of, in that context, is a "great quake." Magnitude 8.0 and higher. The earth averages one of those in any given year, and California gets our turn about once every 200 years. The last was the Fort Tejon quake of 1857.
Of course, location can be just as important as magnitude. If the San Andreas fault is in the process of shifting to the eastern part of the state, as some geologists believe, we could get "The Big One" with relatively low numbers in deaths and damages (the 1992 Landers 7.3 might have been a first step towards that). Pour a few beers into a an expert on the subject, and you might be told that the real nightmare scenario for our part of the world isn't an 8+ on the San Andreas, but a domino effect on the smaller faults perpendicular to it. Say, 8 or 9 Northridge (6.7) size events over a few hours or days, each triggering the next.
Here is a site you might want to take a look at.
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/index.html
Just to refresh, since you say you are going off things you remember vaguely after reading many years ago, lots of minor and very minor quakes are totally irrelevant in 'bleeding off' energy for the big ones. You'll see the known faults on that map, but remember, the fault that triggered Northridge was unknown before the quake.
Sorry I can't be as precise as the Global Warming scientists.
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