Question

The San Andreas fault separates the pacific plates from the North America plate. The pacific plate moved northward relative to the North American plate at a rate of 5.7 cm/year. Currently LA and San Francisco are about 470km away from each other, how long will it take for LA and SF to be next to each other? Answer in years

Answer 1

8.2 million years

Explanation:

The time can be found from ...

time = distance/speed

time = (47.0×10^4 m)/(5.7×10^-2 m/yr) = 8.2×10^6 yr

It will take about 8.2 million years for LA to have the same latitude as SF.

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The given numbers each have 2 significant digits, so the answer is appropriately rounded to 2 significant digits.