Hi Chris,

Now that Don in Hollister had provided you with some scientific data on the San Gregorio, I'll give you the "flip-side" which actually led my friend and I to do some serious research on this fault.

In September of 1999 I was taking a geology class at Sonoma State University and I had a dream about this fault one night. In the dream I could see the area quite clearly and then I saw a rather large red number 7. Next to the 7 was a time line running up and down. I saw a marker next to the time line and it was going down and it stopped at the half-way point between the top and the bottom of the 7. Next I was looking at Point Reyes and saw the debris from a tsunami. There was a park ranger in the area and I asked him if he had seen my girlfriend. He looked rather beleagured and he said, "no, I haven't seen her."

With this dream bringing the topic of this fault to the forefront, Don and I began a serious effort to find out all we could about this fault and its potential. In 1999 the USGS listed this fault as only having a 10% chance of a 6.7 quake in the next 30 years. But things do change.

In December 1999 I walked into a lecture at the AGU and was really surprised to find the speaker talking about the San Gregorio Fault. He said according to the Coulomb Hypothesis, this fault should be given at least a 25% chance of producing a 7.0 quake in the next 30 years. Not long after, the San Gregorio fault probability percentage was upgraded by the USGS.

Now its just a matter of time before the 7.0 magnitude quake happens. I have no idea about the dates that would be associated with the time line I saw in my dream, so its anyone's guess.

We learned a lot as a result of my dream about this lesser known fault, but in retrospect I think the clearest definition to this is that the segment of the San Andreas that runs from the Presidio/south end tower of the Golden Gate Bridge to Loma Prieta, which is in a seismic gap is not the only fault that has a serious potential to rupture. Both of these are area's to watch, observe and keep an ever watchful eye in the future.

Petra