What does the Long Island Vicinity and California have in common? Toursim, industry, fishing and gaming, farming, being a part of an incredibly urban and megalopolis environment, traffic problems and ubran sprawl and believe it or not FAULT LINES! California of course everyone knows is earthquake central in the United States, the dreaded San Andreas Fault line is something most Americans have knowledge of. What many people do not know is that there is a big fault line very close to Long Island called the Ramapo Fault System, that occasionally shakes up the Long Island area with small quakes, now it is not on Long Island but close enough that the quakes are felt quite well on the Island.
There is another fault like off the coast of Long Island under the Atlantic Ocean, the East Coast Boundary Fault, but it is mostly stable. Much of the big geologic activity in the fault lines along this Long Island area were 200 million years ago or more. This link is to a great article that has lots of information about the geologic makeup of the area, it is made available by the New York State Museum.
Luckily unlike California there is no direct fault line under Long Island, although I wonder if there were and the Island sunk into the sea as a result of a big quake, would Long Island be the new Atlantis? Just silly food for thought.
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