have been predicting for many years. The Cascadia subduction zone is also known as CSZ megathrust fault. It is roughly 1000km long, a dipping fault that stretches from Northern Vancouver Islands to Cape Mendocino California. The zone passes through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and into California. The Cascadia region has experienced several types of earthquakes and it is very likely to experienced similar quakes in the near future. Cascadia earthquakes fall into three major categories:
11th March 2011, 2: 45 PM, local time Japan, a day, a time, a moment which saw what can be termed as the worst natural disasters for Japan – A magnitude-9 earthquake ruptured the fault line that spreads across 500 km along the northeastern coast of Japan. This earthquake was the fifth largest in the world as per some reports by eminent scientists. The earthquake was followed with a giant tsunami whose size was so overwhelming that the 18-feet tsunami walls near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
(FOX5). This sounds like a plot for a scary movie, but this is actually a reality. The Oregon Coast in located on a subduction zone, which makes it very susceptible to major earthquakes and tsunamis. With the Cascadia subduction zone running along he West Coast the threat of a major tsunami is very real. The scenario mentioned above was based on the rupture located along the Cascadia fault line. This fault system runs from Northern California to Vancouver Island about 700 miles off the shore (FOX5)
boundaries known as subduction zones, in which one tectonic plate is forced underneath
being affected by this says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast” (Schultz 2017). What he means by this is the entire coast would be gone. “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” (Schultz 2017). Anything still
Unique Characteristics of Transform Faults There are many characteristics that make earthquakes along transform fault different from subduction zones, rift zones, and mid-ocean ridge transform faults. For instance, transforms faults are when two plates move past each other, shearing, with no creation or destruction of lithosphere. At transform faults, earthquakes are shallow and run as deep as 25 km. the magnitude of the earthquakes are smaller than 8.5 in the scale of Richter. In extensional boundaries
Today, when people want to cross over the ocean and get to another continent, they have to take plane for eight or more hours or ship for few days. However, if people were born millions of years ago, they might easily cross a boundary of tow continents by accident. Because according to the continental drift theory, ages ago, the continents today were a completed one piece and called Pangaea. (Sandner, 506-507) The continental drift theory is a theory first proposed by a German geologist and meteorologist
While the early warning saved thousands of people, the Japan’s Meteorological Agency underestimated this earthquake as the subduction zone of Japan should not produce the magnitude 9.0 quake (Oskin, 2013a). The Tohoku Earthquake and its tsunami approximately killed 16 thousand people, injured 6 thousand people and around 3 thousand people were missing. Most people died from drowning
While the early warning saved thousands of people, the Japan’s Meteorological Agency underestimated this earthquake as the subduction zone of Japan should not produce the magnitude 9.0 quake (Oskin, 2013a). The Tohoku Earthquake and its tsunami approximately killed 16 thousand people, injured 6 thousand people and around 3 thousand people were missing. Most people died from drowning