The Really Big One

[MachineGhost]

This just won a Pulitzer Prize!  So much for moving to the NW.

[quote=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/ ... ly-big-one]Most people in the United States know just one fault line by name: the 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.

Take your hands and hold them palms down, middle fingertips touching. Your right hand represents the North American tectonic plate, which bears on its back, among other things, our entire continent, from One World Trade Center to the Space Needle, in Seattle. Your left hand represents an oceanic plate called Juan de Fuca, ninety thousand square miles in size. The place where they meet is the Cascadia subduction zone. Now slide your left hand under your right one. That is what the Juan de Fuca plate is doing: slipping steadily beneath North America. When you try it, your right hand will slide up your left arm, as if you were pushing up your sleeve. That is what North America is not doing. It is stuck, wedged tight against the surface of the other plate.

Without moving your hands, curl your right knuckles up, so that they point toward the ceiling. Under pressure from Juan de Fuca, the stuck edge of North America is bulging upward and compressing eastward, at the rate of, respectively, three to four millimetres and thirty to forty millimetres a year. It can do so for quite some time, because, as continent stuff goes, it is young, made of rock that is still relatively elastic. (Rocks, like us, get stiffer as they age.) But it cannot do so indefinitely. There is a backstop—the craton, that ancient unbudgeable mass at the center of the continent—and, sooner or later, North America will rebound like a spring. If, on that occasion, only the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone gives way—your first two fingers, say—the magnitude of the resulting quake will be somewhere between 8.0 and 8.6. That’s the big one. If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That’s the very big one.

Flick your right fingers outward, forcefully, so that your hand flattens back down again. When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west—losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries. Some of that shift will take place beneath the ocean, displacing a colossal quantity of seawater. (Watch what your fingertips do when you flatten your hand.) The water will surge upward into a huge hill, then promptly collapse. One side will rush west, toward Japan. The other side will rush east, in a seven-hundred-mile liquid wall that will reach the Northwest coast, on average, fifteen minutes after the earthquake begins. By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover* some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Roughly three thousand people died in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Almost two thousand died in Hurricane Katrina. Almost three hundred died in Hurricane Sandy. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million. “This is one time that I’m hoping all the science is wrong, and it won’t happen for another thousand years,” Murphy says.

In fact, the science is robust, and one of the chief scientists behind it is Chris Goldfinger. Thanks to work done by him and his colleagues, we now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three. The odds of the very big one are roughly one in ten. Even those numbers do not fully reflect the danger—or, more to the point, how unprepared the Pacific Northwest is to face it. The truly worrisome figures in this story are these: Thirty years ago, no one knew that the Cascadia subduction zone had ever produced a major earthquake. Forty-five years ago, no one even knew it existed.[/quote]

[Ad Orientem]

Holy crap!

P.S. Glad I just moved from the Left Coast.

[Xan]

Goldfinger, eh?  He just wants us to die.

[Libertarian666]

This is one of the main reasons I'm not moving to the Pacific NW. It's beautiful, but the danger is too high.

If I did live there, it would be to the east of the mountains. I'm not saying that people/cities there will be untouched, but they should mostly survive. To the west, not so much.

[Mountaineer]

More good doom porn for the Left side, and in reality it would really, really screw up things for the rest of us.    http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/prediction-2 ... evastated/

We just can't outsmart mother nature.  Do you have a plan if one of these events comes to pass?  This would make climate change doom porn look like a gold fish in an ocean of sharks. 

... M

[Libertarian666]

More good doom porn for the Left side, and in reality it would really, really screw up things for the rest of us.    http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/prediction-2 ... evastated/

We just can't outsmart mother nature.  Do you have a plan if one of these events comes to pass?  This would make climate change doom porn look like a gold fish in an ocean of sharks. 

... M

Yes, as it happens, I do have a plan for that (including not being in any of the ash zones).

However, a major difference is the time scale. The Cascadia fault is quite likely to let go during the lifetimes of most of the people in the US, whereas the timing for the Yellowstone eruption is far more uncertain, as in +/- thousands or tens of thousands of years.

[drumminj]

[quote=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/ ... ly-big-one]Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”
[/quote]

Sure am glad I live east of I-5. I'm probably just as hosed, though.  Time to go refresh the emergency water and inventory the bug-out-bags....

[WildAboutHarry]

Yawn.

There was a small quake centered near Vancouver Island a few months ago.  So I don't know if there will be many stress-relieving quakes, one big one, a bunch of middlin' ones, etc.

I know for a fact that there are going to be tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, etc. with loss of life this year NOT in the Pacific NW.

This is Pulitzer Prize stuff?

Take your hands and hold them palms down, middle fingertips touching. Your right hand represents the North American tectonic plate, which bears on its back, among other things, our entire continent, from One World Trade Center to the Space Needle, in Seattle. Your left hand represents an oceanic plate called Juan de Fuca, ninety thousand square miles in size. The place where they meet is the Cascadia subduction zone. Now slide your left hand under your right one. That is what the Juan de Fuca plate is doing: slipping steadily beneath North America. When you try it, your right hand will slide up your left arm, as if you were pushing up your sleeve. That is what North America is not doing. It is stuck, wedged tight against the surface of the other plate.

You put your right hand in,
You put your right hand out,
You put your right hand in,
And you shake it all about,

You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around
That what it's all about.

In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover* some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people.

Don't they teach states and capitals in school any more?

[MachineGhost]

Sounds like someone is in denial about a river not being in Egypt.   1 in 3 is pretty formidable odds compared to relatively minor events like tornadoes, floods and other inclement weather that you can escape from ahead of time.  Especially when you're already 73 years past the cyclical average of occurences...

I've been in enough earthquakes in SoCal that I'm not as fazed by them compared to the one I experienced in the PNW in the early 90's.  I'll take the San Andreas any day.

I thought this was sobering...

Among natural disasters, tsunamis may be the closest to being completely unsurvivable. The only likely way to outlive one is not to be there when it happens: to steer clear of the vulnerable area in the first place, or get yourself to high ground as fast as possible. For the seventy-one thousand people who live in Cascadia’s inundation zone, that will mean evacuating in the narrow window after one disaster ends and before another begins. They will be notified to do so only by the earthquake itself—“a vibrate-alert system,” Kevin Cupples, the city planner for the town of Seaside, Oregon, jokes—and they are urged to leave on foot, since the earthquake will render roads impassable. Depending on location, they will have between ten and thirty minutes to get out. That time line does not allow for finding a flashlight, tending to an earthquake injury, hesitating amid the ruins of a home, searching for loved ones, or being a Good Samaritan. “When that tsunami is coming, you run,” Jay Wilson, the chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC), says. “You protect yourself, you don’t turn around, you don’t go back to save anybody. You run for your life.”

P.S.  Reason why I thought this old article was timely was because we're now in a cyclically bullish period of increased earthquake activity as of March.  Already two huge volcanoes erupted this month on the Ring of Fire, one in Alaska and one in Mexico.

[dragoncar]

Yawn.

There was a small quake centered near Vancouver Island a few months ago.  So I don't know if there will be many stress-relieving quakes, one big one, a bunch of middlin' ones, etc.

I know for a fact that there are going to be tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, etc. with loss of life this year NOT in the Pacific NW.

This is Pulitzer Prize stuff?

Take your hands and hold them palms down, middle fingertips touching. Your right hand represents the North American tectonic plate, which bears on its back, among other things, our entire continent, from One World Trade Center to the Space Needle, in Seattle. Your left hand represents an oceanic plate called Juan de Fuca, ninety thousand square miles in size. The place where they meet is the Cascadia subduction zone. Now slide your left hand under your right one. That is what the Juan de Fuca plate is doing: slipping steadily beneath North America. When you try it, your right hand will slide up your left arm, as if you were pushing up your sleeve. That is what North America is not doing. It is stuck, wedged tight against the surface of the other plate.

You put your right hand in,
You put your right hand out,
You put your right hand in,
And you shake it all about,

You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around
That what it's all about.

This is the church, this is the steeple... 9.0 eathquake.. where are the people?

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=dragoncar]This is the church, this is the steeple... 9.0 eathquake.. where are the people?[/quote]

Touche 

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=MachineGhost]Sounds like someone is in denial about a river not being in Egypt.   1 in 3 is pretty formidable odds compared to relatively minor events like tornadoes, floods and other inclement weather that you can escape from ahead of time.  Especially when you're already 73 years past the cyclical average of occurences...

I've been in enough earthquakes in SoCal that I'm not as fazed by them compared to the one I experienced in the PNW in the early 90's.  I'll take the San Andreas any day.

I thought this was sobering...[/quote]

I spent my formative years in SoCal (until early 20s).  Felt exactly one earthquake.

Bad things happen.  Read this.  There isn't any "best" place to be.  But significant earthquakes are relatively rare.  And I would like to see the calculations that determined a "1 in 3" chance of a big one over the next 50 years.  Whatever the calculation, that also means a 2/3rds chance of nothing.

Of course now I've jinxed myself. 

[ochotona]

If you're out of quake zone, and you hear an 8.5 has popped off in Seattle... do you panic sell your equities?

[Libertarian666]

If you're out of quake zone, and you hear an 8.5 has popped off in Seattle... do you panic sell your equities?

I don't have to worry about that because I don't have any equities. 

I suspect my portfolio would do pretty well in such a case, though, and wouldn't be selling.

[Ad Orientem]

If you're out of quake zone, and you hear an 8.5 has popped off in Seattle... do you panic sell your equities?

If you are in the PP you ignore the news and go about your daily business other than perhaps to send a charitable donation for the relief of the afflicted.

[Ad Orientem]

... “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

Hmmm... sounds like California, Oregon and Washington could all become Republican states in less than 30 minutes.

[MachineGhost]

Hmmm... sounds like California, Oregon and Washington could all become Republican states in less than 30 minutes.

Only the northern parts of California, mostly the redwood treeish areas to Sacramento but not SF.  So all the Millennial Hipsters that dominate SF [to Seattle] will still have a surviving cell to propagate anew!

I do wonder about knockon effects to the San Adreas fault.

[MachineGhost]

But wait, there's more! (BTW, it really sucks how the search function wouldn't find this topic but would all kinds of irrelevant stuff from 2011 or 2012.)

The largest disaster drill ever conducted in the Pacific Northwest found that, despite decades of warnings, the region remains dangerously unprepared to deal with a Cascadia megaquake and tsunami.

During the four-day “Cascadia Rising” exercise in June, 23,000 participants grappled with a hypothetical catastrophe that knocked out power, roads and communications and left communities battered, isolated — and with no hope of quick relief.

Washington state officials called their own response plans “grossly inadequate,” according to a draft report and records reviewed by The Seattle Times. The report warns that “the state is at risk of a humanitarian disaster within 10 days” of the quake.

The government’s ability to provide aid in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake is so limited that Washington state’s Emergency Management Division will now ask residents to stock enough resources to survive on their own for up to two weeks, instead of the three days it advised in the past.

The report also warned that Washington’s own laws could actually prevent officials from marshaling medical resources to treat the legions of injured people.

The blunt assessment comes from a late-stage draft of Washington state’s post-mortem on the exercise, which followed two years of planning and included officials from three states, the U.S. government and British Columbia. Washington’s emergency-management division plans to brief the governor on the findings in January.

“We know this is an issue that will require strong coordination at every level of government,” said Tara Lee, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jay Inslee.

Beyond the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the report says Washington lacks any long-term strategy to help the region’s economy, cities and businesses recover from what would be one of the worst natural disasters the United States has ever faced.

“Everything we depend on to live our 21st-century lives is going to be significantly degraded or eradicated,” said Washington Emergency Management Director Robert Ezelle. “The needs are going to be immediate, they are going to be urgent and they are going to be overwhelming.”

Full Story: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... iew-finds/

[Maddy]

Hmmm... sounds like California, Oregon and Washington could all become Republican states in less than 30 minutes.

Ha! You beat me to that post!

[Benko]

Serious question, I don't live in that area, but know a number of people who do. Is this worth passing on? i.e. is there anything anyone living in those areas could do differently (aside from moving which is unlikely) with this knowledge? Why increase people's anxiety level otherwise?

Oh and I was in SF during the worlds series quake. Kinda surreal. For days after, you'd pick up the phone and there might or might not be a dial tone eventually. Also there were mild aftershocks for weeks and you'd be in bed, half asleep and wonder if you were dreaming or was that an aftershock/start of another real quake.

[MachineGhost]

Serious question, I don't live in that area, but know a number of people who do. Is this worth passing on? i.e. is there anything anyone living in those areas could do differently (aside from moving which is unlikely) with this knowledge? Why increase people's anxiety level otherwise?

Well, the report said the death toll is expected to be only 14,000 in OR and WA combined which I thought seemed ridiculously low for the most epic natural disaster that will ever hit the USA. Now, either there's not a lot of people living west of I-5 or they're vastly underestimating the number. I suspect the latter.

If you're now gonna need at least a 2-week supply of food and water minimum just to stay alive, then not passing this info along would almost guarantee them certain death via starvation and/or dehydration from being unprepared/ignorant/naive/in-denial. Do you really want that on your conscience?

This is a serious enough threat that moving east of I-5 is not off of the possibility list. It's not gonna do much good to stock up on the proverbial guns and ammo if the resulting tsunami drowns you.

BTW, when I lived in WA (before this Cascadia Fault was known), I used to have sporadic nightmares of drowning from huge tsunamis. Now I know why.

[MachineGhost]