The San Andres fault system is slowly but surely pushing Los Angeles closer to San Francisco. But don't expect the two cities to be neighbors anytime soon. The tectonic plates of the Pacific and North America are sliding one above the other along the San Andres fault, at a rate of about two inches each year. Los Angeles, located on the edge of the Pacific Plate, is moving north at the same speed as a nail grows.
In the past, there have been major earthquakes in the south of San Andrés. Plate tectonics hasn't stopped suddenly; it continues to push Los Angeles toward San Francisco at the same rate as nails grow, approximately 1.5 inches each year. Although they are in the same state and on the same continent, Los Angeles and San Francisco are located on different tectonic plates. Los Angeles is situated on the Pacific plate, which extends from California to Japan, from the Aleutian Arc of Alaska to New Zealand.
San Francisco is located on the North American plate, which extends east to the Mid-Atlantic mountain range and Iceland. The boundary between them is the San Andrés fault. This is where the two plates are slowly dragged one over the other; their movement cannot be stopped any longer than we could turn off the sun.Someday, in the distant future, the movement of the Pacific plate along the San Andres Fault will eventually lead Los Angeles and east of San Francisco to come together and be neighbors. However, if current rates of movement are maintained, it will take approximately 20 million years for this to happen.In the meantime, FlixBus-US operates a bus from San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles once a day, and the journey takes 8h 5 m.
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