Faults Run Under Everything Living in California, it’s easy to forget that faults run under everything. In Imperial County, off a back road between the Salton Sea and Mexico, is a wide expanse of dirt and a series of mud volcanoes. The mud volcanoes or “mud pots” mark the southern end of the San Andreas fault. We found them when we took a wrong turn past the new border patrol check point off Highway 111, drove past a power station and ended up at the sheriff's house. He was out in his yard, wearing a star badge and a gun. He gave us directions, saying one of the volcanoes had erupted violently in the morning, blowing off its top. The superheated clay gurgles sloppily, loudly, comically. The sound reminds us how precarious our perch is on this thin crust. The California land everyone seems obsessed with owning. The mud volcanoes are at the Southern tip of the Salton Sea, the site of Southern California’s most sublime real estate disaster. Our favorite bar is there, at Bombay Beach. Visit quick, before it disappears.