Is Vashon at Risk for Tsunamis?
March 21, 2012
Most folks think of an overseas or Cascadia based quake as generating a terrible tsunami – and they are right. However such a tsunami is not likely to cause massive damage to Vashon from what I’ve heard – largely due to the moderating influence of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. (It will be interesting to verify this at our upcoming April 18th community meeting with Washington State experts).
Earthquakes Maps Updated–For Eastern US
February 1, 2012
Thanks to the NY Times for noting the first update to eastern US earthquake maps in almost a quarter century. Sad that it was apparently only done to spur permitting of nuclear power plants.
Cascadia Mega-Fault Due to Rupture
January 11, 2012
…sometime in the next 500 years, according to a great blog a couple weeks back by the PSSN’s John Vidale, a regular contributor to their “Seismo Blog” How likely is it to go? Well you’ll have to read his blog that breaks down some of the inputs to evaluating the actual risk factor – which I think he never actually stated…
New Fault Lines Revealed in Washington State
January 11, 2012
Two new articles from the Homeland Security Newswire and the Yakima Herald discuss new fault lines (maybe better described as extended and remapped fault lines) that the U.S. Geological Survey’s Brian Sherrod has been studying. It is too early to not consequences for these and the discovery doesn’t inherently up the likelihood for quakes, but will make future predictions more accurate and does expand our understanding of the mechanisms at work underground – where real faults are much more complex than simple two dimensional lines on a map. Click on the map to the right to see several views of the newly unveiled faults.
FEMA computer predicts massive damage from Seattle quake
August 13, 2011
The Associated Press came to this week’s 5th Annual Hazus conference held at the federal building and wrote up a nice piece citing (yet again) that we are not ready for the huge quakes possible from any number of faults, but especially the Seattle and Cascadia faults:
5th Annual National HAZUS Conference set for Seattle, August 10-12
June 7, 2011
Mark your calendars! The Annual Hazus Conference will be held in Seattle, Washington, August 10 – 12, 2011, at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.