About

The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) project was established in 1998 with the aim to improve our understanding of the San Andreas Fault, California's notorious 800 mile long fault that has hosted several devestating earthquakes while stretching beneath the region's most populous cities. A collaborative effort between the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), NSF, and USGS, SAFOD commenced with the drilling of a 2.2 km deep pilot hole in 2002, followed by three phases of drilling between 2004 and 2007 penetrating an additional 3.2 km into the fault. It succeeded as the first borehole to intercept regions of seismicity at depth along a plate-boundary fault, with near complete recovery of material from two active fault strands. Since the start of the project, over 1,500 samples have been distributed with results published in over 100 peer-reviewed journals.