San Onofre 2

Posted on June 17, 2003 in Biomes Fact-Dropping Photos

Take a good look at the picture on the left. The slender crack between the orange stone and the pink — between the San Mateo Sandstone on the left and the Monterrey Shale on the right — that’s the Cristainitos earthquake fault. The chips falling away are due to erosion: it hasn’t moved for 125,000 years. If a big one strikes south Orange County, it won’t be because of this flaw in the earth. (There’s an underwater fault about ten miles from this site which is more likely to do damage.)

About a quarter to half a mile from this spot is the San Onofre Nuclear Power Generating Plant. When they built the base for the reactors, they levelled off the alluvium (“mud”) and scraped off the sandstone until they reached a basaltic baserock. Floods aren’t likely to dump the reactor into the ocean. Only something big — like a shock on the Laguna/Newport Fault — could propel the plutonium stoked boilers into the sea.

Given the half life of the materials, it is going to happen. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but in the future for certain. Isotopes linger for centuries. I hope someone will be around to scrape the beaches clean.

Click on the image to view the gallery.