At what rate are various parts of California moving due to plate tectonics?
An average plate velocity is 4 cm/yr. Of course this varies from plate to plate. San Francisco Bay Area is part of the complex plate boundary system between the Pacific and Northern American Plates. The San Andreas Fault is the dominant expression of the collision between these plates in California. San Franciso, on the eastern side of the San Andreas fault, is on the North American Plate. Los Angeles, on the western side of the fault, is on the Pacific Plate. Relative to the North American Plate, the Pacific Plate is moving northwest; the Juan de Fuca Plate is moving eastward. There is a superb movie of plate motion: http://animations.geol.ucsb.edu/ • Describe atmospheric oxygen and banded iron formation How much oxygen (or any gas) is in the atmosphere depends on how fast oxygen is produced versus how fast it is removed. Obviously excess of production over removal will allow oxygen to accumulate in the atmosphere. In the atmosphere now, oxygen is production by photosynthesis nearly b
