Yes, it was also seas as a good portion of California is very young geologically and the coastline areas were underwater as recent as 10 million years ago - earthquakes have gradually raised the area around here as well as sea levels fluctuating. - but we're not sitting on a lake bed we happened to drain and fill in our recent history. Mexico city was built on an old lake bed/canal/swamp area.

I'm just trying to clear up the relation that LA is like Mexico City - not quite the same.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say it looks like its shattering - We've got 2 major plates grinding against eachother over here (for around 20 million years) and there's lots of interesting things going on. There are some wonderful places where the earth is folded together like an accordion and faulted - torturous to be sure - and yes, there are faults everywhere.

Canie