September 3, 2000, magnitude 5.0

This quake hit nearest to Yountville, but the bulk of the damage happened in nearby Napa.

According to the Strong Motion Center, a collaboration between the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, this was, at the time, the largest North Bay quake since 1969, and for unknown reasons the shaking in Napa was significantly more violent for a quake of this size.

April 19, 1892, magnitude 6.4

In 1997, a paper published in the journal California Geology noted that “no causative fault has been identified as the source of the 1892 earthquake” near Vacaville, or the 6.2 aftershock two days later.

Local papers speculated about four possible explanations, including the chance that the quake was caused not by a fault line but instead by a process called “active folding.”

August 24, 2014, magnitude 6.0

The 2014 Napa quake has the dubious distinction of still being the region’s most recent destructive quake.

Although damage to the North Bay was fairly significant, only one person died. Surprisingly, this death happened more than a week later; the victim waited too long to seek medical treatment after her television fell on her during the tremor.

October 8, 1865, magnitude 6.3

Several successive earthquakes jockeyed for prominence when it came to the phrase “San Francisco earthquake” before 1906, including this now-obscure 19th century tremblor. Mark Twain later recounted a harrowing scene:

“And here came the buggy—overboard went the man, and in less time than I can tell it the vehicle was distributed in small fragments along three hundred yards of street. The streetcar had stopped, the horses were rearing and plunging, the passengers were pouring out at both ends, and one fat man had crashed halfway through a glass window on one side of the car, got wedged fast, and was squirming and screaming like an impaled madman.

“Every door, of every house, as far as the eye could reach, was vomiting a stream of human beings; and almost before one could execute a wink and begin another, there was a massed multitude of people stretching in endless procession down every street my position commanded. Never was a solemn solitude turned into teeming life quicker.”

June 1838, magnitude 7.0

This slightly mysterious pre-Gold Rush quake (its exact date and epicenter remain unclear) has caused no end of confusion for those trying to piece together the region’s geological history.

In 1998, the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America published surprising findings indicating that the supposed 1836 Hayward Fault quake probably never happened, and the “illusion of an 1836 Hayward quake” was actually garbled accounts of this nearby tremor two years later.

April 18, 1906, magnitude 7.9

The day that redefined San Francisco, not just structurally but also in how people thought about the city, its future, and its place in the world. 

Over the years, much debate has gone into deteriming precisley how powerful the big one was, with estimates as high as 8.3 or as “low” as 7.7. The current 7.9 estimate makes it probably the second largest recorded quake in California history.

January 24, 1980, magnitude 5.5

The first of two startling quakes near Livermore over the course of three days; the aftershock on January 26 was actually probably larger, estimated at a 5.8 in magnitude.

The upset caused a massive blackout and some property damage, but the only recorded death at the time was “possibly from a heart attack” rather than directly from the quake itself.

October 21, 1868, magnitude 7.0

The US Geological Survey records that “because of its location in the heart of the Bay Area, then having a total population of about 260,000, and its magnitude [...] this earthquake was one of the most destructive in California history. Property loss was extensive and 30 people were killed.”

Thus it became known as “the great San Francisco earthquake,” at least at the time. USGS even created a Google Earth simulation of this historic disaster.

July 1, 1911, magnitude 6.5

Though the largest quake ever recorded on the Calaveras Fault, these days people are more likely to remember the Morgan Hill quake of April 24, 1984, which was smaller, at around a 6.2.

Seismologists predict a 26 percent chance of a large quake (6.7 or greater) on this line over the next 30, making it one of the quieter local faults.

However, researchers at UC Berkeley reported in 2015 that the Calaveras Fault is physically connected to the nearby Hayward Fault. Since the length of a fault determines the worst quake it can produce, this may make it more dangerous than previously anticipated.

August 6, 1979, magnitude 5.8

Previously, the Coyote Lake quake was thought to mark the end of the Bay Area’s decades-long lull in earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater, but subsequent study has diminished estimates of its impact down to as low as 5.7.