Earthquakes in San Diego

San Diego carries a moderate earthquake risk, lower than Los Angeles or the Bay Area but far from negligible. The main local hazard is the Rose Canyon Fault, an active strike-slip fault that runs beneath downtown, San Diego Bay, and the coastal neighborhoods, capable of producing quakes in the magnitude-6.5 to 7 range. To the east, the San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems could also send strong shaking toward the city during a large regional earthquake.

Historically San Diego has been relatively quiet, but studies of the Rose Canyon Fault show it has ruptured in the past and is considered capable of a significant future event given its location directly under a dense urban core. The 2010 magnitude-7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in nearby Baja California was widely felt across the city, a reminder that regional faults on both sides of the border pose a real threat to San Diego.