Tag Archives: Underwater mapping

Underwater mapping techniques show new detail of Cascadia Subduction Zone – a 600-mile fault line extending from southern Canada to northern California

9.0-Earthquake-damage-Japan

Important Takeaways:

  • Major fault line off West Coast could trigger catastrophic 9-magnitude earthquake, study finds – and it’s due to blow
  • An underwater fault line along the US West Coast could trigger a mega quake that would be more devastating than California’s ‘Big One,’ a new study suggests.
  • Using underwater mapping techniques, scientists have mapped the Cascadia Subduction Zone – a 600-mile fault line extending from southern Canada to northern California – in never-before-seen detail.
  • It has revealed that the fault splits into four segments instead of being one continuous strip like most fault lines. The discovery could prove more catastrophic because the tectonic plates can slide under each other, creating more pressure and more severe earthquakes.
  • California’s San Andreas is poised for an up to 8.3-magnitude quake, for comparison.
  • If an earthquake of over 9 magnitude struck the West Coast US it could generate tsunamis reaching 100 feet high or more, kill more than 10,000 people and cause over $80 billion in damages in just Oregon and Washington alone.
  • Disaster emergency plans in Oregon and Washington warn that in the aftermath of a quake that big, they could face a wave of long-term deaths due to disease from exposure to dead bodies, animal carcasses, contaminated water and Hazmat spills from commercial, industrial and household sources.
  • A similar fault zone off the coast of Japan erupted in 2011, creating a magnitude 9 quake that caused a devastating tsunami to strike the country, killing nearly 20,000 people.
  • Now scientists are worried that a similar calamity could impact the US in the coming years, reporting that quakes caused by Cascadia occur roughly every 500 years, with the last one taking place in 1700.
  • ‘The recurrent interval for this subduction zone for big events is on the order of 500 years,’ Wang said.
  • ‘It’s hard to know exactly when it will happen, but certainly, if you compare this to other subduction zones, it is quite late.’

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