The San Andreas fault runs very nearly straight in the area of this view. Beyond Cajon Pass (CP) is the fault's southern segment, which threads the needle between the San Bernardino Mountains (SB) and the San Jacinto Mountains (SJ) near Palm Springs. Due east of Elizabeth Lake (EL) is the Mojave desert city of Lancaster (L); the city of Palmdale (P) nestles against the fault at the edge of the San Gabriel Mountains. Between Palmdale and Cajon Pass is Wrightwood, where a series of trenching studies have documented thousands of years of earthquake history on this part of the fault.
This view takes in about one-fourth of the rupture of the 1857 earthquake.