In the 2015 movie “San Andreas,” the largest earthquake in recorded history devastates California.

The cause of the statewide natural disaster is the 800-mile-long San Andreas Fault, which separates the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. It has a reputation as being one of the most destructive faults in the world, because of its proximity to major population centers like Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Did Hollywood get “San Andreas” right? Can a San Andreas earthquake create a tsunami? Can California earthquakes really open huge canyons when they rupture?

Josh Spinler, an instructor in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Department of Earth Sciences shared some answers during an event that was open to the public Wednesday, Feb. 17.

“Hollywood seems to think that every time there is an earthquake, a huge crack needs to open in the ground,” Spinler said. “Whereas in nature, that is rarely, if ever, the case. It just makes for a better story to have the ground open up and swallow people than what actually happens.”

Spinler worked to set the record straight in his talk, “The San Andreas Fault: Hollywood’s Natural Playground (or How to Destroy California in under 2 hours!),” which was held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17, in the UALR Engineering and Information Technology Building Auditorium.

While showing clips from “San Andreas,” and other movies including “2012,” and “10.5,” Spinler used San Andreas Fault research to discuss how accurately Hollywood portrays these natural disasters on the big screen.

“For those that are focused on geological disasters, no place gets destroyed more often than Hollywood’s own backyard, California,” he said. “While some of the top geologists and geophysicists in this country have been hired as technical advisors for these disaster movies, Hollywood still finds ways to bend the truth when it comes to geological accuracy in order to better push the narrative that the director wants for their movie.”

Spinler graduated from the University of Wyoming with two bachelor’s degrees in geology and geography in 2006. He next attended the University of Arizona, where he received his master’s degree in geosciences in 2008 and his doctorate in geosciences in 2014.

His dissertation focused on observation and modeling the present-day crustal deformation field of the greater southern San Andreas Fault system in southern California and northern Baja California in Mexico.

For more information, visit https://ualr.edu/earthsciences/earthtalk.