The Monta Vista Fault is a potentially active[1] geologic fault,[2] i.e., a fault capable of generating destructive earthquakes, in Santa Clara County, California, USA. It is a relatively short fault that runs between and generally parallel to the much longer San Andreas Fault and Hayward Fault zones, trending northwest along the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Coast Range Geomorphic Province. The most recent activity was estimated to had been approximately 700,000 years ago.[1] It has a slip rate of 0.4 mm/year.[3] However, a recent magnitude 2.6 earthquake[4] has been attributed to this fault.[5] A more recent, shallow, magnitude 3.1 earthquake occurred on December 19, 2010 followed by a magnitude 2.4 aftershock at the same fault.[6]
The Fault runs through the campus of the Foothill College, meandering from under the child-care center and Fine Arts building to alongside the campus center and the Carriage House. [7]