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Full Version: Where the Pacific Northwest's Big One is likely to strike
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IOW, not so much in Oregon. Excellent!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...to-strike/

"Our results provide new insights into how this subduction zone, and possibly others, behaves over geologic time frames of millions of years. Unfortunately our results can’t predict when the next large Cascadia megathrust earthquake will occur. This will require more research and dense active monitoring of the subduction zone, both onshore and offshore, using seismic and GPS-like stations to capture short-term phenomena.

Our work does suggest that a large event is more likely to start in either the northern or southern sections of the fault, where the plates are more fully locked, and gives a possible reason for why that may be the case.

It remains important for the public and policymakers to stay informed about the potential risk involved in cohabiting with a subduction zone fault and to support programs such as Earthquake Early Warning that seek to expand our monitoring capabilities and mitigate loss in the event of a large rupture."
(Jul 28, 2019 06:47 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]...Our work does suggest that a large event is more likely to start in either the northern or southern sections of the fault, where the plates are more fully locked, and gives a possible reason for why that may be the case.

I'm not entirely sure where the northern and southern ends are.

The northern end is up off the BC coast, I guess. The southern end is northern California I guess. But up by Eureka, not by me (I hope). We have our own "big one" coming... so we're still doomed... not a matter of if, just a matter of when...

Quote:IOW, not so much in Oregon. Excellent! ...

It might strike southern Oregon. But perhaps not so much in Portland or Seattle, the big Northwest population centers. At least assuming these people are right, which isn't 100% certain.
It looks like San Francisco may also be spared the brunt of this:

[Image: CSZ.jpg]
I'm not feeling so confident about Seattle. We already had a pretty good jolt a few years ago. I was wondering if the walls of my house were going to be able to keep moving that much. It stops just before the undulations became too much.

A long earthquake is a scary thing. I was in a short 7.4 earthquake in Costa Rica. The Seattle one was scarier. Of course I was worried about my house damage in Seattle and not in Costa Rica.
Quote:Research indicates the fault ruptured in a magnitude 9.0 event in 1700. That’s roughly 30 times more powerful than the largest predicted San Andreas earthquake. Researchers suggest that we are within the roughly 300- to 500-year window during which another large Cascadia event may occur.

Hopefully by then the West Coast will not have seceded to become an independent Union, to escape the "dangerous" politics of Flyover Country. Even with possibly the 5th largest economy in the world, that and the other fault event combined during a not-too-separated interval might be a devastating earth-wreck and set of tsunamis to recover from on its own.