Sanfrancisco Earthquake 1989 over view

On October 17, 1989, at 5:04:15 p.m., a magnitude 6.9 earthquake severely shook the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions. The epicenter was located at 37.04° N. latitude, 121.88° W. longitude near Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, approximately 14 km northeast of Santa Cruz and 96 km south-southeast of San Francisco. The earthquake occurred when the crustal rocks comprising the Pacific and North American Plates abruptly slipped as much as 2 meters (7 ft) along their common boundary-the San Andreas fault system. The rupture initiated at a depth of 18 km and extended 35 km along the fault, but it did not break the surface of the Earth .