Hi All. The following was taken from the San Francisco Chronicle. No date was given, but believe the information is relative new as this is the first time I have seen it in print. It has been in print before, but not as a single page.

Geologist David Schwartz of the Geological Survey said that concerns now focus on the Rodgers Creek Fault, which stretches from San Pablo Bay north through Sonoma County. Many scientists consider it to be a northern extension of the Hayward Fault, where scientists estimate the chances are one in three that a major quake will hit the fault within 30 years. I had just recently been told to view the Maacama fault as an extension of the Rodgers Creek fault. The Rodgers Creek fault has been given a 32% chance of being the location of the next major quake in the Bay Area. This makes it the one number one fault.

Surveying recent quake activity throughout the North Bay, Schwartz noted that the Rodgers Creek Fault has experienced 14 small tremors since 1970. The largest one, with a magnitude of 4.2, struck less than three years ago. This would be the Bennett Valley quake which Petra got a first hand look at when she went to a home that filled a claim for earthquake damage. In December of 1981 there were 4 small quakes just east of Petaluma. I have never been able to find any quakes further south then those four with the exception of a small swarm that occurred in San Pablo Bay very recently. However those quakes could have occurred on the Pinole fault.

Near Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County, the Maacama Fault has been extremely active recently, Schwartz noted, with five quakes recorded in the past five years -- including two with magnitudes of 4.2 and 4.3 in less than 10 days in January 2000.

And in September of 2000 a strong 5.2-magnitude quake hit near Yountville in the Napa Valley, causing nearly $60 million in damage throughout the area. It shook the ground severely, but caused no surface rupture at all. This means that the exact location of the fault is still unknown.

Scientists located the epicenter of that quake beneath the summit of Mount Veeder. It struck on a wholly unknown fault that had never been mapped.

"What all this means for the long range, we really don't know," Schwartz said, "but the trenching we've done on the Rodgers Creek Fault shows that major quakes, with magnitudes of at least 7, could have occurred there in 1670 and again in 1776."

The exploratory trenches of past quakes show that the average return time for major temblors on the Rodgers Creek Fault is about 200 to 225 years.

On October 21, 1886 Mare Island Navy Yard experienced two severe quakes. No evidence of these quakes was found in the trenching of the Rodgers Creek fault. However this doesn’t mean very much as it could be possible that the trench wasn’t dug in the right place. Take Care…Don in creepy town