SAFOD crosses the fault

SAFOD, the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, is a cutting-edge project that's drilling a slanted hole across the San Andreas fault down in central California. Yesterday the drillers hit a soft zone where the fault is expected to be. Get the news straight from the source at the SAFOD daily reports page.

The plan is to drill a bit further, then draw back to the near side of the fault and emplace a bunch of monitoring instruments there that will keep an eye/ear/nose on things for the following decade or more. See more about the project.