Find Parkfield
Parkfield is located 218 miles south of San Francisco and 196 miles north of Los Angeles.
Surrounded by rolling hills covered with oaks, the remote township of Parkfield sits on the San Andreas Fault in the coastal mountain ranges of Central California. Parkfield today is a small town with a population of 18 in which 900 or so people work in the surrounding area as ranchers, farmers or merchants supporting these activities. There is a small tourism industry in the town based on the prospect of earthquakes.
The general public is welcome to visit Parkfield and interact with the PIEQF. Stay at the Parkfield Inn, eat at the Parkfield Cafe. Bring an RV, pitch a tent. Parkfield locals believe Parkfield is the earthquake capital of the world. The local motto is;
“Eat here when it happens, Sleep here when it happens”
If you would like to stay at the Parkfield Inn make a booking by calling the Parkfield Cafe on (805)463-2421. The Cafe is open everyday of the week except Wednesday.
Click HERE for link to more photographs of Parkfield.
Parkfield is also the home of the USGS - Parkfield Earthquake Experiment. Since its inception in 1985 the experiment’s purpose is to better understand the physics of earthquakes - what actually happens on the fault and in the surrounding region before, during and after an earthquake.
The coordinated efforts of the USGS with collaborating universities and government laboratories resulted in the implementation of a dense array of seismic recording instruments. As a result, the region of Parkfield is the most closely observed earthquake zone in the world. This array of seismic monitoring instrumentation was set to “capture” an anticipated earthquake of magnitude 6.0 and above to reveal the earthquake process in unprecedented detail.
The region of Parkfield has traditionally had moderate size earthquakes (M6.0 or above) at fairly regular intervals - 1857, 1881, 1901, 1922, 1934, 1966 and most recently 2004. On September 28, 2004 the Parkfield Earthquake Experiment ‘trapped’ a M6.0 earthquake.
More External Web Links About Parkfield California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkfield,_California
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