Parkfield, California
Encyclopedia
Parkfield is an unincorporated community
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in Monterey County
Monterey County, California
Monterey County is a county located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, its northwestern section forming the southern half of Monterey Bay. The northern half of the bay is in Santa Cruz County. As of 2010, the population was 415,057. The county seat and largest city is Salinas...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. It is located on Little Cholame Creek 21 miles (34 km) east of Bradley
Bradley, California
Bradley is a census-designated place in Monterey County, California, United States. Bradley is located on the Salinas River south-southeast of San Ardo, at an elevation of 548 feet...

, at an elevation of 1529 feet (466 m). As of 2007 road signs announce the population as 18.

Parkfield is located at 35°53′59"N 120°25′58"W in the Temblor Range
Temblor Range
The Temblor Range is a mountain range within the California Coast Ranges, at the southwestern extremity of the San Joaquin Valley in California in the United States. It runs in a northwest-southeasterly direction along the borders of Kern County and San Luis Obispo County. The name of the range is...

 between the San Joaquin Valley
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton...

 and the Central Coast, at an elevation of 1,529 feet above sea level. Mining and Homesteading used to be a prosperous activity in this community, but the mines were exhausted below economic recovery levels and the industry moved elsewhere. Today, it is a small town of about 18 people, most of whom are ranchers and farmers. There is a small tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 industry in the town based on equine-related events, hunting, a bluegrass music
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 festival, and Parkfield's unique earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

 history (see the geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 section below). The Parkfield motto is, "Be here when it happens."

A post office operated at Parkfield from 1884 to 1954. The town's original name of Russelsville was rejected by the post office and Parkfield was chosen from the town's park-like setting among oak trees.

The ZIP Code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 is 93451, and the community is inside area code 805
Area code 805
North American area code 805 is a California telephone area code. Area code 805 includes most or all of the California counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, plus southernmost portions of Monterey County....

.

Geology

Parkfield lies along the San Andreas Fault
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...

, one of the longest and most active faults in the United States, which appears in the town as a seasonally dry creek bed. The fault marks the divide between the North American Plate
North American Plate
The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, Bahamas, and parts of Siberia, Japan and Iceland. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust...

 and the Pacific Plate
Pacific Plate
The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate....

 (see plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...

). There is a bridge across the creek with piers on either side that have shifted more than five feet relative to one another due to aseismic creep
Aseismic creep
In geology, aseismic creep is measurable surface displacement along a fault in the absence of notable earthquakes.An example is along the Calaveras fault in Hollister, California. Streets crossing the fault in Hollister show significant offset and several houses sitting atop the fault are notably...

 since the bridge was constructed in 1936.

Since at least 1857, Parkfield has had an earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

 of 6 or greater magnitude on average of every 22 years. In 1985, the US Geological Survey predicted that there would be a comparably-sized earthquake in this community by 1993, but no such event came until September 28, 2004, when a magnitude-6.0
Richter magnitude scale
The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....

 earthquake struck at 10:15 am Pacific Daylight Time
Time zone
A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times...

. The additional time did offer the opportunity to add improvements in instrumentation as technology further developed.

Parkfield is the most closely observed earthquake zone in the world. Scientists constantly measure the strain in rocks, heat flow, microseismicity, and geomagnetism around Parkfield. The observation of the San Andreas fault in Parkfield will hopefully help scientists better understand the physics of earthquakes and faulting; information gathered from Parkfield may still be used someday to issue predictions for major earthquakes along the San Andreas fault and around the world.

Since 1985, the United States Geological Survey
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...

 has been working on a project known as "The Parkfield Experiment", a long-term research project on the San Andreas fault. "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."

In 2004, work began just north of Parkfield on the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth
San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth
The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth is one of three components of the Earthscope Project, funded by the National Science Foundation in conjunction with the USGS and NASA. The SAFOD site is located just north of the town of Parkfield, California...

(SAFOD). The goal of SAFOD is to drill a hole nearly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) into the Earth's crust, across the San Andreas Fault. The specific target of the probe was a patch of fault known to generate sequences of repeating microearthquakes of around magnitude 1.0. The drilling was completed in the midyear of 2005, and an array of sensors was installed to capture and record earthquakes that happen near this area. It is hoped that SAFOD observations will provide insight into the source mechanisms of these small earthquakes, which can be scaled up in an effort to understand larger events.

Mountain bike racing

Parkfield is also the site of the Parkfield Classic, one of the longest-running mountain bike races, the longest-running race on the Central Coast, and the largest collegiate mountain bike race in the United States, excepting the Nationals.

The race was first held in 1989 by a private party, Jim A. Jim ran the race yearly in the fall until 1999, when the Cal Poly Wheelmen took over hosting the event.

The event is typically the first or third weekend in October. The cross-country course is 9, 16, and 24 miles for different categories. The race also has a single-track downhill, a moderate length fully separate and bermed dual slalom, and a short-track race on either a flat parade loop or a technical campground loop.

External links

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