SONGS is San Onofre Nuclear Generating station. I just opened it in Google Earth, and it is 8 km from the center of San Clemente. I probably know as much as anyone about the fault systems that are near it and offshore. In 1994, about 2 weeks after the Northridge earthquake, we went on a field trip to a secondary fault, maybe inactive, which is close to and in sight of SONGS. The field trip leader, a professor at one of the Cal States, said that in 1978 a landslide down the coast took out a chunk of coast the size of SONGS, in similar geology. Google Earth SONGS (written out) it is so close to the beach, and so close to "the 5". Since 1994 I've thought it was a bit of a crazy place for a nuclear power plant. I talked to a geologist a half hour ago who said some of the landslides down the coast are active.

In my interview a decade ago at the nuclear regulatory Commission, I talked to the boss dude about what I knew about the geology around the 3 nuclear power plants I was familiar with. Two were on the California coast. He said that they were hard rocks sites. I probably told him about the landslides and I know I told him about the Monterey Formation. I think, but could be wrong, that Diablo Canyon is built on Monterey Formation. I told him that I worked on Monterey Formation on Santa Cruz Island, and dated a rock avalanche landslide in it (or paid to have charcoal in it dated). Much of the Monterey Formation on the island is landslide. Deep-seated landslides opened up about a decade ago due to heavy rain: did not even need an earthquake. The topography at Diablo Canyon is much less steep, but still...

I was funded by the USGS for 4 months of work a couple of years ago. I ended up working on a much larger area and got the report done in mid-2010: it is online and I linked to it in past and can again upon request. In Japan, convergence rate is, if I recall correctly (not checking), on the order of 80 mm/yr. Fault slip rates near San Onofre are closer to 1 mm/yr (but there are a couple of faults). The fault system at the base of the continental slope dips in a direction beneath the coast. The question is whether the Newport-Inglewood faults, which there dips away from the coast, cuts off the landward-dipping fault. I have a logical argument that it does not.

I have no plans to publish this work because I have other things to publish that are important to Long Beach-Los Anegles, to Istanbul, and if I ever get to it (need funding), Haiti. But, it is available in my Final Technical Rpeort.
Chris