The Owens Valley Fault runs through the deep desert valley between the Sierra Nevada and the Inyo–White Mountains in eastern California. It is a right-lateral strike-slip fault with a normal component, marking one of the westernmost strands of the Walker Lane belt that accommodates plate motion east of the San Andreas system.
The valley itself is a down-dropped trough flanked by towering mountain fronts, and repeated movement on the fault has built and offset the landscape over long spans of geological time. Scarps and shifted stream channels near the town of Lone Pine record its recent activity.
The fault ruptured in the great 1872 Owens Valley earthquake (magnitude ~7.4 to 7.9), one of the three largest historical earthquakes in California. It destroyed much of Lone Pine, killed dozens of residents, and left a prominent scarp still visible along the valley floor.