Cerro Prieto Fault

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The Cerro Prieto Fault is a transform fault, which means two pieces of the Earth’s crust slide past each other horizontally. It sits in the far north of Baja California, Mexico, and runs between the Cerro Prieto spreading center southwest of Mexicali and the Wagner Basin spreading center beneath the Gulf of California. These spreading centers are part of the East Pacific Rise, and the northern part of this rise has helped form the Gulf of California by slowly pulling Baja California away from mainland Mexico. Earthquake data show a straight line of earthquakes northwest of Cerro Prieto, which scientists interpret as the fault continuing about 45 kilometers farther to the northwest, crossing the border into southern California, about 7 kilometers inland from the coast.