Earthquakes generally occur at fault lines, places of weakness in the earth’s crust where two of the earth’s plates rub together. In California, where the novel is set, the earth’s plates are steadily moving past each other in opposite directions at the slow pace of about 1.5 inches per year. Whenever the plates snag on each other and suddenly snap free, an earthquake occurs. California has hundreds of fault lines, but its longest fault line is the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault marks the tectonic plate boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. It runs from Cape Mendocino in the north to the Salton Sea in the south, a distance of about 750 miles. In the novel, Jonathan thinks about what he has learned about earthquakes in school and mentions the San Andreas fault. Kehret also provides some general information about earthquakes from Jonathan’s point of view as he reflects on what he knows about them.

Throughout this survival tale, the author crafts a variety of descriptions of the types of damage that earthquakes can cause. The violent shaking of earthquakes can result in structural damage, landslides, tsunamis, fires, ground displacement, and more.