MegaFault

In West Virginia, Charles “Boomer” Baxter is setting mountain-top depletion explosives. He detonates the TNT, and an unprecedented earthquake devastates the area. A few hours later government seismologist Dr. Amy Lane arrives at the quake’s epicenter.

She realizes that the quake has opened a deep fault running through the center of North America, ending at the San Andreas Fault. Any further instability will cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis, devastating Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities all around the Pacific Ocean, leading to the deaths of millions.

Dr. Lane and Boomer chase just behind the expanding crack in the Earth’s crust, developing a plan to stop the next quake. They decide to use a satellite orbiting above the continent which can trigger earthquakes. They fire it off when they reach the Grand Canyon, thinking that when the new fault hits the canyon it will be forced to turn south into the Gulf of Mexico. When the fault crosses with the canyon, they fire the satellite at the canyon but plan goes wrong. Instead of heading south, the fault travels north, towards the Yellowstone Caldera.

They realize that if the fault crosses the caldera it will explode, expelling several thousand tons of ash into the atmosphere, killing millions and causing a Volcanic winter. They decide to set explosives to block the fault’s path. Later, when it reaches the park, Boomer detonates the explosives, causing the fault to stop just short of the volcano, but costing Boomer his life. In the end, an orbiting shot of the United States shows a giant canyon that stretches miles-wide across most of the continent.

Last Updated: July 16, 2025 at 08:00