# When will California fall into the sea?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-california-fall-into-the-sea/103845>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [April 16, 2002, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-california-fall-into-the-sea/103845 "2002-04-16T00:05:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bferullo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a587f6/32.png) [@bferullo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bferullo)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2002, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-california-fall-into-the-sea/103845/1 "2002-04-16T00:05:50Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> If you simply mean “when will California slide away to oblivion?” the answer is about 50 million years. The Pacific “plate,” which carries the western sliver of California, is sliding past North America at the dizzy rate of about two inches per year. Someday, Los Angeles will slide under the earth’s crust near the Aleutian Islands, but this is no time to worry about it–I’ll let you know when it’s time to start packing.

–from [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1\_157a.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_157a.html)

My question is this: wouldn’t the fact that continental crust is less dense than seafloor crust prevent it from subducting, thereby causing Los Angeles to collide with the Aleutian Island arc rather than “slide under?” This has happened many times in the history of the earth, e.g. in the collision of Indo-Australia with Asia. Or, in an even better example, when the Bronson Hill volcanic chain collided with what is now the northeast N. American coast, followed (relatively) closely by the Avalon terrane. There were subduction zones involved in both events.