![]() Careful sleuthing by two scientists determined that a tsunami known to have slammed Japan in 1700 was actually caused by a giant earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. Terrible news.Īs Schulz recounts, scientists didn't even realize earthquakes occurred along the Cascadia subduction zone until the 1980s. When that happens, the land in the Pacific Northwest will suddenly drop several feet, while land to the west will rebound under the ocean, producing a large tidal wave heading for the West Coast. Periodically, the two plates get stuck by friction, building up enormous strain over many hundreds of years until the rocks suddenly slip past each other, releasing that pent-up energy in seconds - and creating a staggeringly large earthquake. The basic story here is that the Juan de Fuca Plate is being shoved beneath the North American Plate. ( US Geological Survey/Pacific Northwest Seismic Network) ![]() ![]() The Cascadia fault stretches 700 miles from Vancouver Island in Canada down to Cape Mendocino in northern California: Schulz's piece (which you should read in full, not least because it's beautifully written) doesn't include diagrams, so here's a helpful visual showing the subduction zone in question. And we're not really prepared for this event. If another truly large earthquake ever hit, it could ravage buildings and bridges throughout Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and Eugene - and, much more worryingly, produce a giant tsunami capable of killing thousands of people along the West Coast. One of the best science stories you'll read all year is Kathryn Schulz's unnerving piece in The New Yorker about the Cascadia subduction zone, a little-known fault line along the US Pacific Northwest that has produced tremendous earthquakes in the distant past - and is all but certain to strike again someday.
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