Pour comprendre la propagation du séisme et les dégats qui ont été causés par le grand séisme de 1906, les sismologues ont construit un modèle informatique. La simulation montre comment le sol a bougé des deux côtés de la faille de San Andreas et comment les ondes sismiques se sont propagées depuis la faille provoquant les vibrations. Le séisme qui a débuté à 2 miles des côtes de la ville de San Fransisco, a provoqué des vibrations sur une distance de 300 miles tout le long de la faille de San Andreas.

The movies and snapshots available here portray the shaking over a 155 mile by 70 mile area covering the San Francisco Bay region. They are offered in .mov format, which can be viewed using a variety of plugins available for most browsers. These movies are typically 4 MB or more in size, and are best downloaded using a high speed internet connection. Snapshots from one movie are also offered as an alternative for those with slower modem connections.

Five second snapshots taken from one of the movies available below. Yellow to red colors indicate regions experiencing damaging shaking. Isolated regions of intense shaking, like the one near Santa Rosa 20 miles from the fault, result from a combination of the amount of slip nearby on the fault, the geologic materials that the seismic waves travel through, and the local geologic conditions.

Sources :
USGS