1906 San Francisco earthquake

A major earthquake that struck San Francisco on April 18, 1906, rupturing the San Andreas Fault and triggering fires that devastated the city.

San Andreas Fault: A major transform fault marking the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates in California. The earthquake ruptured this fault, producing intense shaking across the region.
Plate tectonics: The theory that Earth's outer shell consists of moving plates whose interactions shape the planet's surface. Motion between the Pacific and North American plates loads the San Andreas Fault.
Andrew C. Lawson: An American geologist who led the scientific investigation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. He edited the landmark report that documented the rupture and its effects.
1906 San Francisco fire: A series of fires that devastated San Francisco after the April 18, 1906 earthquake. The fires caused more destruction than the shaking and became the disaster's defining consequence.
San Francisco City Hall: The seat of San Francisco's city government, destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fires and later rebuilt. Its destruction demonstrated the scale of damage to civic infrastructure.
Elastic-rebound theory: A theory explaining earthquakes as sudden slip that releases strain accumulated in rocks along a fault. The 1906 rupture helped establish this explanation of how faults generate earthquakes.
Transform fault: A fault along which two crustal blocks slide horizontally past one another. The San Andreas is a transform fault, the type that produced the 1906 strike-slip rupture.
Harry Fielding Reid: An American geophysicist who formulated the elastic-rebound theory of earthquakes. His analysis of the 1906 rupture helped explain how accumulated strain produces earthquakes.
San Francisco reconstruction: The rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fires. Reconstruction reshaped the city's buildings, infrastructure, and urban development.
Palace Hotel: A luxury hotel in San Francisco that survived the 1906 earthquake but was destroyed by the ensuing fires. Its fate illustrates how fire, rather than shaking alone, destroyed major buildings.

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