Most Dangerous US Earthquake Hot Spots Beyond California
December 1, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
The biggest earthquakes in the country are not in California. A much greater hazard, at least in terms of sheer magnitude, exists to the north of the San Andreas Fault where the ocean crust is being forced beneath the North American continent.
Known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone, this 680-mile long stretch of colliding land mass 50 miles offshore of Oregon, Washington state and southern British Columbia is capable of generating magnitude 9 earthquakes 30 times more powerful than the worst the San Andreas can dish out.
“There are lots of other earthquakes that may happen first, but they won’t be as big,” said marine geologist Chris Goldfinger of Oregon State University in Corvallis.
An earthquake of this size would completely devastate the region, which includes Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. There could be thousands of deaths and unprecedented damage for a quake in this country. Major travel routes will be impassable. The shaking could last a full four minutes, which would damage or bring down structures that could have survived a shorter duration.
On top of the danger from shaking, within minutes, a tsunami would likely inundate the low-lying coastal areas. Cascadia is the same type of fault that caused the 2004 Sumatra quake and tsunami.
via 5 Most Dangerous U.S. Earthquake Hot Spots Beyond California | Wired Science | Wired.com.
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2 Earthquakes Strike Off Southern California Coast
Two moderate earthquakes have struck under the ocean near the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports a magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck the sea floor about 14 miles east of San Nicolas Island at 2:45 p.m Sunday.
A magnitude 3.6 quake hit three minutes later in the same spot, 56 miles west of Santa Catalina Island, in an area where the sea floor is about 2,000 feet below the surface.
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Two Earthquakes Strike Indian Ocean Region, Japan
Two potentially destructive earthquakes struck minutes apart in the Indian Ocean and Japan today, generating tsunami alerts for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Japan.
The larger of the two quakes was a magnitude-7.6 temblor that hit the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. It was followed less than 15 minutes later by a 6.6-magnitude quake in Japan southwest of Tokyo.
The tsunami watch was later canceled, the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said, adding that no significant tsunami was generated. The alert was in effect for as long as three hours after the quake struck parts of India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The Andaman quake struck at a depth of 33 kilometers 21 miles at about 1:55 a.m. local time and was centered 260 kilometers north of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, or about 825 kilometers west of Bangkok, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
A magnitude-9.1 earthquake that hit off the coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra in December 2004 triggered a tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean, leaving more than 229,000 dead or missing from Southeast Asia to eastern Africa.
Mysterious Tremors Detected On San Andreas Fault
Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California’s San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.
What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.
