I just became aware of a surfing movie called Step Into Liquid. One part shows surfing 150 km offshore Southern California on 20 m waves on Cortes Bank. By coincidence, I am working on a proposal to map the northern part of that shallow area-the northern part is called Santa Rosa Ridge. Cortes Bank and Santa Rosa Ridge are the crest of an enormous anticline (actually, anticlinorium), that probably started folding in the last 5 million years. We think that to have such an enormous fold, you must have an enormous fault. If active, an enormous fault can have an enormous earthquake-but, in this case, it would have to be a (very) rare earthquake. Such an earthquake could cause some surf of it own. Cowabunga! The question is whether it is active. A very preliminary look for this proposal suggests that wave-eroded surfaces, cut during sealevel lowstands during glacial time, have been folded. If true, the structure must be active...
I want to see this movie-I'm a surf watcher, but not a surfer.....my marine geophysicist wife was also watching when I short on the movie came on-she hopes we would not be surveying the area during 60 foot surf....oops, mean 20 m...
Chris