Incoming earthquake in Pacific Northwest- extremely informative article

[Amanda Palmer]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

It's a long read, but it includes a lot of history and explanation, as well as survival advise...

By the way, this is my first post, sorry it is so depressing! Looking forward to sharing and learning with you all.

- Amanda

 

[DoctorApocalypse]

Yeah, many people/media outlets/scientists/etc... have been saying some ultra massive quake is gonna hit the region for decades now, and I have no doubt that it will happen eventually, but stuff like that article is nothing more than alarmist (and I really hate this word but...) propaganda and more meant to sell survival supplies to soccer moms vs call out an imminent threat. So while it may be an entertaining read, I wouldn't get too caught up in it.

But aside from that, welcome aboard, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

 

[Odin]

Welcome to the site @Amanda Palmer. I love geology so this was a good read thank you.

I added the news tab to this thread. It is a bit of a huge article to post though.
So just leaving it as your link.

And yes. Judging if the threat is imminent may be difficult, but it is there no doubt.
It's a great research subject.
After all the north west has produced the largest earthquakes in the US. With Alaska further up... carrying the record at a magnitude 9.2.

EDIT: Also wanted to add an excerpt from the article...

The first clue came from geography. Almost all of the world’s most powerful earthquakes occur in the Ring of Fire, the volcanically and seismically volatile swath of the Pacific that runs from New Zealand up through Indonesia and Japan, across the ocean to Alaska, and down the west coast of the Americas to Chile. Japan, 2011, magnitude 9.0; Indonesia, 2004, magnitude 9.1; Alaska, 1964, magnitude 9.2; Chile, 1960, magnitude 9.5—not until the late nineteen-sixties, with the rise of the theory of plate tectonics, could geologists explain this pattern. The Ring of Fire, it turns out, is really a ring of subduction zones. Nearly all the earthquakes in the region are caused by continental plates getting stuck on oceanic plates—as North America is stuck on Juan de Fuca—and then getting abruptly unstuck. And nearly all the volcanoes are caused by the oceanic plates sliding deep beneath the continental ones, eventually reaching temperatures and pressures so extreme that they melt the rock above them.

 

[spectacular]

cool! i'm in portland right now. i keep thinking about earthquakes happening as i climb the rocks on the way to my sleeping spot along the river. i'd be toast. nice article.

 

[Art101]

its a great scifi story There will be a big quake indeed and it will suck but reality is a touch different. Welcome to the site lol,My geologist friends in Seattle said that story is awesome..Yeshttp://www.wallyhood.org/2015/07/corrections-to-the-new-yorker-earthquake-story/

 

[Odin]

This is useful.

http://crew.org/sites/default/files/cascadia_subduction_scenario_2013.pdf

 

[Kim Chee]

I'm all for earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes and all manner of natural phenomena. It is what has been happening to this planet presumably long before we were here and will likely be going on long after we are gone.

 

[Tude]

I'm on a bunch of conspiracy sites and the doom and gloom runs a muck there but there has been a heavier concentration of the BIG ONE coming for the west coast. And the fact that several volcanoes in Indonesia are threatening to really go (they are smoking with ash not) airspace has been compromised and some EQ in Alaska --- well the CT sites are busy ... Whole bunch of fun tools they have too. ooooOO @Odin - I should send you some of these ...

http://ds.iris.edu/seismon/

http://earthquaketrack.com/

 

[Andrea Van Scoyoc]

People have been predicting, "the big one," for years.

I don't discount anything because I don't feel there's anything that's impossible.

But...I hope it never happens.

 

[Mankini]

There is a wonderful project DARPA is working on right now that scans the internet for buzz trends and tries to predict the future based off that. I forget the name but its closely tied in with chaos theory, pattern recognition, and Fibonacci.

Nikolas Taleb wrote an excellent series on this kind of stuff.