The southernmost San Andreas fault has a high probability of rupturing in a large (greater than magnitude 7.5) earthquake sometime during the next few decades. New simulations show that the chain of sedimentary basins between San Bernardino and downtown Los Angeles form an effective waveguide that channels Love waves along the southern edge of the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains. Earthquake scenarios with northward rupture, in which the guided wave is efficiently excited, produce unusually high long‐period ground motions over much of the greater Los Angeles region, including intense, localized amplitude modulations arising from variations in waveguide cross‐section.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.