San Juan, Argentina

San Juan, Argentina: In 1944 San Juan was virtually leveled by an earthquake, produced by the ongoing collision of the South American and Pacific tectonic plates and the growth of the Andes. Just north of the city, the traces of such active faults can be seen to cut the valley floor sediments and to continue southward beneath the town. Relief on these young fault scarps ranges from about a foot to tens of feet. The narrow ranges of sedimentary rock lying west of San Juan consist of rock layers that were part of North America until about 460 million years ago.

Photo and caption thanks to:
Earth Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center. 30 Apr. 2003. "Astronaut Photography of Earth - Display Record." http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=STS110&roll=706&frame=57.

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