SAN FRANCISCO — A tsunami-producing fault in Lake Tahoe is
overdue for another earthquake, scientists said here Tuesday at
the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The West
Tahoe Fault is capable of producing a magnitude-7.3 earthquake
and tsunamis up to 30 feet (10 meters) high in the clear blue
lake, where million-dollar homes line the shore, researchers
said. Earthquakes strike every 3,000 to 4,000 years on the
fault, and the most recent shaker was 4,500 years ago,
indicating the fault is overdue for another earthquake, said
Jillian Maloney, a graduate student at the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography in San Diego. The West Tahoe fault defines the
west shore of the lake, coming on shore at Baldwin Beach,
passing through the southern third of Fallen Leaf Lake, and then
descending into Christmas Valley near Echo Summit. Science news
from NBCNews.com To trace the fault's history, Maloney and her
colleagues examined data from a CHIRP seismic imaging system,
which details underwater sediment layer