Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t IceAgeNow – seismologist Chris Goldfinger has warned that a gigantic Earthquake, just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, with the potential to kill over 10,000 American people, is many decades overdue.
According to The New Yorker;
San Andreas, which runs nearly the length of California and is perpetually rumored to be on the verge of unleashing “the big one.” That rumor is misleading, no matter what the San Andreas ever does. Every fault line has an upper limit to its potency, determined by its length and width, and by how far it can slip. For the San Andreas, one of the most extensively studied and best understood fault lines in the world, that upper limit is roughly an 8.2—a powerful earthquake, but, because the Richter scale is logarithmic, only six per cent as strong as the 2011 event in Japan.
Just north of the San Andreas, however, lies another fault line. Known as the Cascadia subduction zone, it runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, beginning near Cape Mendocino, California, continuing along Oregon and Washington, and terminating around Vancouver Island, Canada. The “Cascadia” part of its name comes from the Cascade Range, a chain of volcanic mountains that follow the same course a hundred or so miles inland. The “subduction zone” part refers to a region of the planet where one tectonic plate is sliding underneath (subducting) another. Tectonic plates are those slabs of mantle and crust that, in their epochs-long drift, rearrange the earth’s continents and oceans. Most of the time, their movement is slow, harmless, and all but undetectable. Occasionally, at the borders where they meet, it is not.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one
The Earthquake and tsunami are not the only problems which victims of the coming Earthquake will face. According to The New Yorker, Fifteen per cent of Seattle is built on liquefiable land, including seventeen day-care centers and the homes of some thirty-four thousand five hundred people. . Liquefiable land is exactly what it sounds like – during a strong Earthquake it temporarily turns to a liquid similar to quicksand. Anything solid simply sinks into the ground.
The odds of a major in the next 50 years are estimated as one in three, or a “full rupture”, which would generate a magnitude 9+ Earthquake just off the coast of the Western seaboard, as one in ten.
In the wake of the devastating 2011 Japan Earthquake, Japan has been busy deploying Earthquake early warning sensors throughout the country. Earthquakes create non destructive “P waves“, which can be detected ahead of the main quake, providing a few minutes warning.
The following Fox News interview claims there is no budget to deploy a Japanese style early warning system in the Seattle area, or any of the other regions at risk from the Cascadia fault – perhaps local government departments are too busy writing “global warming impact” studies, to give attention to Earthquake risks.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=4356513070001According to the video, if a full rupture Earthquake strikes, everything West of Interstate 5 will be “toast”.
The last time the Cascadia fault produced a major Earthquake was in 1700, and there is evidence of 41 similar events occurring roughly every 240 years, stretching back over the last 10,000 years, so there is strong historical evidence that this is a real and present danger to the citizens of the American Northwest. The next Earthquake is at least 60 years overdue.
A rather less hysterical view of the New Yorker article was recently published in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/kathryn_schulz_s_new_yorker_story_on_pacific_northwest_earthquake_geologists.html
Early warning systems for tsunamis are a good idea. I suspect we’re jumping the gun a bit regarding such systems for earthquakes.
I idea that Seattle will be devastated by a tsunami is a bit far-fetched, given its location in Puget Sound.
Seattle is at sea level. How is being in Puget Sound at sea level and getting devastated far fetched?
Any sizable tsunami would roll through the sound and spread the devastation beyond imagination.
I think Bellingham may be at great risk from a local T.V. program I saw on the subject, but Seattle itself would have the effects filtered by the Puget Sound and the corner the tidal wave would have to turn at the end of the Strait of Juan De Fucca (sp???). As I recall the depth of the water level would be maybe +3? feet in Elliot Bay (don’t quate me on this).
The tsumani won’t reach Seattle, but the shaking will.
Diffraction, destructive interference and outright breaking surf across the several reefs and shoals inbound .,.. seriously doubt inner Sound areas would get the full brunt. But the surge events would be moderately damaging, look at the footage from some of the West Coast small harbors on the open coast from the 2011 Tsunami to get a feel.
The more likely problem will be a collapse of portions of Mt. Rainier and the resulting lahar, which should wipe out Tacoma.
“I (think the) idea that Seattle will be devastated by a tsunami is a bit far-fetched, given its location in Puget Sound.”
Lake Washington has had periods of being salt water, progressing to brackish, and then back to fresh water again for as far back as they can get core samples. On top of that, if you core drill the eastern shore of the lake, you will find layers of soil and sediment filled with things that only grow out on the Puget Sound’s saltwater shore.
Look at a terrain map, and then tell me that the odds of Seattle getting hit by a tsunami are far-fetched. Assuming that those core samples and so forth are not the products of error, something happened that allowed Lake Washington to develop those features. My money is on “tsunami”, along with a bunch of folks who know more than I do. I spoke with a hydrologist who worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, and he claimed to have modeled the effects of a major tsunami coming down the Sound from the faults up around the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Per that conversation with him, the island features in the Sound are just about perfect for causing refraction waves that wash over the Seattle city site with great force.
There’s a reason that the only major civilization that got going here in the Americas was in Central America. Everywhere else gets whacked periodically. If it’s not the earthquakes, it is the volcanoes, or the droughts. The so-called “Potlatch Cultures” of the Puget Sound region start to make a whole lot more sense, once you realize that the locals were merely adapted to the periodic resetting of the clock, so to speak. Why the hell not “eat, drink, and be merry…”, when you could count on Mother Nature sweeping whatever you built into oblivion every few hundred years?
Here in the PNW there is no secret about the earthquakes we get around here. They are strong, but infrequent. When I moved up here they had just had one – and they said that these things happen every twenty years. It is a bit past that now…
When I bought my house about twenty years ago, real estate agents had maps of the geologic underpinnings of neighborhoods. It was easy to see that the areas with sedimentary or landfill underpinnings were mostly the lower priced neighborhoods. I bought my house on solid rock. It cost me more, as these things usually do.
Now the people who bought their homes on unstable ground expect me to pay for their danger they are in, but they never bring up the savings they realize every month when they pay their mortgage. Not everyone can afford to live where I do, I guess, but I think the matter is more about never taking these things into account in the first place. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I have heard that the really dangerous area in Seattle is along Elliot Bay due to the landfill in the early days to create someplace to build. That is pretty expensive real estate there, but it will be payback in a perverse sort of way for forcing the population to waste billions to put the Viaduct underground, so, that their view of Elliot Bay would not be cluttered by cars and a freeway (main throughfare).
It would be hard to overestimate just how bad a job local and state government does here. Come a big earthquake or eruption of one of the local volcanoes (Rainier is the most widely famous, but Glacier and Baker — just as close — are considered more likely to erupt, for whatever that’s worth), the response will be materially degraded by the rank incompetence at every level of government here.
I can’t believe they aren’t blaming this on Global Warming yet.
At what point will WUWT realize things routinely tagged as “Claim:” in the title actually should be tagged “Science:” ?
When “scientists” stop lying.
Bingo!
Not to try and minimize the San Andreas risks, but the New Madrid fault poses as much or more danger to the southern Mississippi river valley due to the possibility of interrupting the river’s course and flow. the long term effects could be devastating on the food, coal and oil transportation.
http://www.infowars.com/why-is-wal-mart-preparing-for-a-major-earthquake-on-the-new-madrid-fault/
This fault has a higher magnitude potential.
http://www.semissourian.com/story/2169312.html
Come on the claim is not new as opposed to the writer.
“Kathryn Schulz joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2015. Previously, she was the book critic for New York, the editor of the environmental magazine Grist, and a reporter and editor at the Santiago Times. She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism and has reported from Central and South America, Japan, and the Middle East. She is the author of “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error” (2010).”
The following link is to a lecture presented by CWU Geology’s Nick Zentner regarding the Cascadia subduction zone, related earthquakes, and tsunami risks for the northern California, Oregon, and Washington coasts. It was presented to a general audience and is scientific while not being obtuse or sensational. If you have the time I recommend a viewing.
Spouse and I were on the front row for this one, and the one before, and the one after …
Ugh.
The Richter Scale was developed years ago in specific relation to the measured amplitude from a seismogram from a Wood-Anderson seismometer.
All seismometers have a limited band-width, and the Wood-Anderson was no exception. The consequence of this is that the Richter Scale was only applicable to earthquakes that were not near field, and no greater than what what we would call a magnitude 6 or so, or the Wood-Anderson would have clipped.
Yet the Richter Scale gained traction due to its use in the media when there were earthquakes in southern California.
Real seismologists don’t talk about the Richter Scale. They talk about the seismic moment.
* * * * *
From Wikipedia:
Seismic moment is a quantity used by earthquake seismologists to measure the size of an earthquake. The scalar seismic moment M_0 is defined by the equation M_0=\mu AD, where
\mu is the shear modulus of the rocks involved in the earthquake (in Pa)
A is the area of the rupture along the geologic fault where the earthquake occurred (in m2), and
D is the average displacement on A (in m).
M_0 thus has dimensions of energy, measured in Joules or Newton meters.
The seismic moment of an earthquake is typically estimated using whatever information is available to constrain its factors. For modern earthquakes, moment is usually estimated from ground motion recordings of earthquakes known as seismograms. For earthquakes that occurred in times before modern instruments were available, moment may be estimated from geologic estimates of the size of the fault rupture and the displacement.
Seismic moment is the basis of the moment magnitude scale introduced by Hiroo Kanamori, which is often used to compare the size of different earthquakes and is especially useful for comparing the sizes of especially large (great) earthquakes.
* * * * *
To talk about a magnitude 9 on the Richter Scale is the stuff of amateurs.
BTW, I live about 3 meters above sea level, right at the beach, in the dead center of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Get in a life raft and speed out to sea….ride the wave rather than experience the 3X power of a waves falling energy.
I live in Oregon. This claim hits the pages of our newspapers every couple of years. Its slow news day stuff.
Of course, its true. We will eventually have an earthquake — but I worry more about crossing the street safely than I do about this “coming” tragic earthquake.
Portland has a dormant volcano in its city limits — Mt. Tabor. Its a city park. We also get the occasional speculative article about it becoming active again. Its been overdue for an eruption for a couple of million years.
Our small lives are driven by our day to day necessities. I got woken up this morning by what sounded to me like shotgun blasts. Perhaps 15 or 20 of them. I have no idea what it was. If it doesn’t make the news I’ll know it was nothing. If it does? So which should I spend my morning worrying about — earthquake or possible shotgun blasts? I think neither. I shall have corn flakes for breakfast. I hope I have enough milk. I forgot to buy it yesterday.
Eugene WR Gallun
Interesting point. This ‘big one’ will be a problem, but if Rainier ever blew its cork – and it can – it would wipe out the ports of Seattle and Tacoma and probably close to a million people living in the valleys between Renton and Puyallup before anybody knew what happened. And Bill Gates would be living on a mud flat.
Nisqually Earthquake (28 AUG 2001) liquefaction:
http://peer.berkeley.edu/publications/nisqually/geotech/liquefaction/distribution/
I have lived in the Seattle/Tacoma area for many years, and was outdoors at a construction site during this 6.8 earthquake, experiencing the P and S waves. Eerie to say the least. However, the soils where I was standing are unconsolidated glacial fill, considered to be Steilacoom Gravel quality (see: http://wa-dnr.s3.amazonaws.com/Publications/ger_misc_steilacoom_gravel.pdf). While I did not experience liquefaction first hand, sand blows and other evidence of the phenomenon were documented throughout the Puget Sound Lowlands at that time: (https://washingtondnr.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/dnr-maps-earthquake-hazards-in-every-county-of-washington-state/)
As to the potential for damage also personal injury/loss of life should ‘The Big One’ hit now, there has been a quite large increase in Western Washington State population since 2001, along with the changing of land use in the lowland areas that were traditionally (since European occupation) farmlands, especially in the increasingly gentrified Fife and Puyallup River valley areas adjacent to the Tacoma Tideflats. These lowlands are the site of ancient lahars and pyroclastic events emanating from the geologically active Mount Rainier (Mount Tahoma); these locations are much more vulnerable to liquefaction-type outcomes than the Steilacoom gravel deposits. (http://citizenreviewonline.org/june2004/mudflow.htm). However, I am merely an amateur geologist for these topics; I would think there are local Geologists that are itching to weigh in on this very pertinent, and extremely interesting subject.
Regards,
MCR
Seattle is too busy trying to get Rent Control, $15 an hour minimum wages, and special transgender rights. When the Cascadia rips, I expect the survivors from Seattle (if any) to swarm around Lake Washington and spread West. A remarkably childish group of people all living under group-think illusions…
We are afflicted by a similar set of bogus priorities here in the UK.
In the year that the UK Environment Agency argued that maintenance of man-made drainage channels would not have been “cost effective”, they were revealed to have been spending our money explicitly on the promotion of gay rights.
(It would have been cost effective by even a simple metric, since the estimated £10 million dredging cost was immediately exceeded by economic losses and pumping costs, in just one year).
I’m have no objection to gay people having rights – but how in their exacting cost-benefit analysis did the EA conclude that funding gay rights marches would be the most cost-effective use of apparently tightly controlled budget?
And how does it relate to their remit, as guardians of the environment?
Questions which have yet to be satisfactorily answered:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560300/Why-did-floods-agency-spend-hundreds-equali-tea-gay-awareness-mugs-30-000-gay-pride-marches-As-Britain-counts-cost-shoddy-defences-reveal-bizarre-spending-quango-bosses.html
My wife and I often say that, sadly, we need a big war or a significant catastrophe to shake people up and reset priorities to normal (i.e, food, shelter, etc.). Those shallow causes in which we spend so much energy (and even money) are a good indication that we’ve become too comfortable and, frankly, bored.
You missed the mayor’s latest toy project – sharia compliant mortgages.
Priorities.
Living in the NW has its hazards. The big kahuna at wa.gov EMS preparedness is the Cascadia Event. It will be a freak show if it happens. Imagine the chaos after four days of no food and water, bridges that fail, old brick buildings falling into rubble, no fuel, no electrical power, …the business continuity will fail. So if talking being prepared, then be prepared which doesn’t mean living in fear. Have a plan, have resources…you might be camping in your home…if it doesn’t catch fire or fall off its foundation.
I think Fox news was looking for some sensationalism…imagine that. Cheers
Sorry, but that does not make the list at Homeland Security where climate change is number two after terrorists. Anything natural does not fit with over reach policy stampede.
Hah! 49ers’ propaganda in an attempt to scare the 12s and quiet down the Clink!
I heard an interview with a seismologist once and he was being grilled on the lack of forecast ability with earthquakes. He retorted “We can forecast exactly where and how strong with great accuracy. The problem is “when”. But two out of three is better than meteorologists”. I had to laugh being a meteorologist.
That Heisenberg guy is tricksy.
It’s not like having warning of potential disaster will wake people up. I mean New York was warned of flooding risk of a storm and yet it did nothing about it.
What surprises people about big quakes is that it not merely small things like teacups that bounce up and down. Your car bounces on the driveway like a basketball. All the water in your swimming pool leaps into the air and comes down on the lawn.
I only experienced a modest earthquake in California. I was cooking french fries in 400° fat at a fast food joint, and the burning hot fat began sloshing. That single experience completely convinced me that I had no desire to experience a Big One. Now I live in New England.
Hey, at least we’ll have rainbow color sidewalks, lots of bike lanes that slow traffic to a crawl, a “rapid transit” system that moves at 20mph, and Sharia Law friendly home lending practices. Those are the things that matter /sarc off/
” For the San Andreas, one of the most extensively studied and best understood fault lines in the world, that upper limit is roughly an 8.2—a powerful earthquake, but, because the Richter scale is logarithmic, only six per cent as strong as the 2011 event in Japan.”
Please guys, correct me if I am wrong here, I have always been completely confused by the scale system re earthquakes
Here goes, is the step up from a 8.0 to an 8.1 twice as strong or 10 x as strong?
then if a 8.1 is twice as strong as a 8.0 what then is an 8.2 compared to an 8.0? 4 x’s? Can I find a graph somewhere. Thanks
I have always thought this is a question that many people have a problem with, I sure did 50 years ago and still do. I guess I stumble over the sheer energies involved and what the damage can be. I can still see the tsunami rolling over acres and acres of green houses , harbors etc. , it was mind boggling.
If one ignores the Richter Scale, and instead looks at seismic moment, then each whole number jump represents a 33X increase in energy released.
So a 7 = 33X the energy released by a 6.
An 8 = 33×33 = 1089X the energy released by a 6.
And a 9 = 33x33x33 = 35937X the energy released by a 6.
The Mother of All Earthquakes was in Chile (1960)
Wikipedia > 1960 Valdivia earthquake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Valdivia_earthquake
… with magnitude 8.1 and 8.6 foreshocks
… a main event magnitude of 9.5
… 11-13 minutes of violent ground motion (though the earth rang like a bell for a month)
… 25 meter tsunami
… fault plane estimated at 1000km by 200km
… with a whopping 20 – 40 meter displacement.
Eek.
Biggest issues in Pac NW would be liquifaction around Puget Sound and the large number of buildings that predate knowledge of the true seismic risks. Unlike Japan, Indo, etc, there are not any major urban areas on the immediate open coast, facing the severe tsunami run up. The much muted version would be less dramatic upon reaching the inner Puget, or the Willamette / Columbia confluence, where the urbanization is.
BTW, no offense to folks north of the border, I was referring to the US. Vancouver is a different story, being directly opposite the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which would obviously allow much more energy to pass through, versus the twists and turns of the Puget Sound and all its inlets.
I live at the north end of Whidbey Island. Whidbey will certainly take a lot of damage from a tsunami, even one muted by the sound. But the island has some pretty hilly terrain. It will end up as three or four islands for a while, the main road going north/south (SR20/525) is at sea level in a few places. NAS Whidbey will have real problems, they’re right at sea level. I’m about 4 miles from the base, but at 220′ elevation.
So I’m not worried about a tsunami affecting my property. A strong quake might, since I’m on a gentle slope. I’m more worried about the Deception Pass bridge. It’s the only non-ferry way on/off the island. It was built in the 1930s, and is solid as a rock. The bridge deck is at about 289′, so a tsunami won’t affect it, but too much shaking probably will.
Fortunately I’ve got a 10kw generator which kicks in automatically. In the event of an extended emergency, we’d certainly keep it turned off except for a couple hours a week as needed, to conserve fuel. the bigger problem would be 6 months of food. Lots of Navy personnel live here, obviously, so maybe that would give us a bit more clout as far as outside help. Dunno.
Well at least you are prepared and I am sure that if your water supply is unaffected you will get enough food. It’s those who are not prepared that should worry. Because in a disaster, often those who are not prepared, prey on those who are.
10^8.2 / 10^8.0 = x
x = 1.585
a 8.2 magnitude is 1.585 times more energy than a 8.0
a 7.0 is 10x a 6.0
No earthquake is the best….the “least is best” philosophy 🙂
Dear J. Philip Peterson,
Sir have you lived on the Oregon coast? Are you aware of the scenic 101 miles of Southern Oregon and its actual Tsunami prep?
I lived on the Oregon Coast for two years between 2009 and 2011. I-5 is not the Oregon Coast. It is a primary road that is about 2 hours East of the coast by driving any of the roads that connect 101 to I-5.
The mountains between I-5 and Highway 101 on the southern coast of Oregon is a wilderness that kills tourist that don’t understand the extreme nature of the landscape. ie the CNN producer and his family, where he starved to death trying to walk out to get rescue for his wife and child. This is not easy land here.
If you look at a map, and look at highway 101 and the towns of Brookings, Gold Beach, Bandon, Reedsport they will be toast. There is 100 miles of 2 lane road that has to be continuously rebuilt during each summer because highway 101 is continuously eroding away. Between Brookings to the South, and Bandon to the North, there is exactly 1 dirt road over the mountains to I-5 that erodes away more winters for weeks at a time.
My wife was the City Manager of Gold Beach at the time it experienced two small Tsunamis, including the death of a former city council member during one of the events. We were told to not to expect even Helo fly overs in the first 10 day’s after a major event. Internally, they told us to stock up on body bags and to expect 80% loss of life before civilization could catch up with rescuing us.
So, Ya, I consider up to 80% death rate on the coast with no escape routes and two weeks before someone flys over… Toast, burnt to a crisp actually.
Hi Jack,
I lived in Eugene for a whole summer working at Diamond A brand Bean Factory for a whole summer. There are 4000 ft mountains between Eugene and the Oregon coast. I spent some time on the coast too. I hope there is a warning system for a possible tsunami, as there are easy places to get to higher ground.
Yes I love the Oregon coast…
Sarah Pierzchala.
An insight into the state of states.
Highlighting priorities. And who am I to care, there’s elections ahead.
d’accord – Hans
The use of “overdue” is an implicit invocation of the Gambler’s fallacy. A longer than normal period without a specific random event occurring does not mean the probability of that random event is greater.