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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Geologists have been left disappointed [npr.org] after a certain misaligned curb was ordered to be fixed by Hayward, California city management:

To the average pedestrian, it was just a curb. To an observant one, perhaps, it was an oddly misaligned curb. To geologists, it was a snapshot of the earth's shifting tectonic plates — an accidental experiment, a field trip destination for decades. But to the town of Hayward, Calif., it was just a bit of subpar infrastructure.

The Los Angeles Times [latimes.com] sums up what happened next: "Then, one early June day, a city crew decided to fix the faulty curb — pun intended. By doing what cities are supposed to do – fixing streets – the city's action stunned scientists, who said a wonderful curbside laboratory for studying earthquakes was destroyed."

Geologist David Schwartz of the U.S. Geologic Survey spoke with NPR [npr.org] on Wednesday. He has been visiting the curb for 30 years. He says the fault that broke the curb — the Hayward fault — is "one of the major and most important faults in the San Francisco Bay Area." "In probably the late 1950s, your standard sidewalk curb was built across the fault — and the fault is creeping," Schwartz explained. "That means it moves a little bit every year, maybe about four millimeters. It broke through the curb and started pushing it out. And over the years it has moved it eight inches." A website for geology-themed field trips has photos of the curb dating back to the early '70s [geologyfieldtrips.com]. They show the separating halves of the curb at first disjointed but overlapping, then growing farther apart.

Now the curb is gone — making way for a wheelchair-accessible ramp, the LA Times reports.

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