Overdue for an Earthquake?

K

kirk wallace

kirk wallace
I felt like the tsunami sub-thread was inundating the WDYDLN thread. So it deserved its own.

On the "overdue" question, I found this part of Kathryn Schulz's follow up very helpful :

"Are we overdue for the Cascadia earthquake?

No, although I heard that word a lot after the piece was published. As DOGAMI’s Ian Madin told me, “You’re not overdue for an earthquake until you’re three standard deviations beyond the mean”—which, in the case of the full-margin Cascadia earthquake, means eight hundred years from now. (In the case of the “smaller” Cascadia earthquake, the magnitude 8.0 to 8.6 that would affect only the southern part of the zone, we’re currently one standard deviation beyond the mean.) That doesn’t mean that the quake won’t happen tomorrow; it just means we are not “overdue” in any meaningful sense. The odds I cite in the story are correct: there is a thirty-per-cent chance of the M8.08.6 Cascadia earthquake and a ten-per-cent chance of the M8.79.2 earthquake in the next fifty years. "

Schulz present a "handy chart from DOGAMI showing the earthquake history on the Cascadia subduction zone and our own current location on that time line." You can see it here:

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Schulz-The-Big-One-Map-41.png

The whole follow up is, I think, very good. It is here:
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-to-stay-safe-when-the-big-one-comes

Note particularly the line about airborne wine bottles.
 
Or sooner, as needed: http://www.oregongeology.org/tsuclearinghouse/pubs-evacbro.htm

I can't tell if they are being overly optimistic re what areas are safe. They don't say, as far as I can tell, on how big a wave/quake they are basing their distinctions; they say "worst case scenario" but I don't know what that means. According to them, where I am having breakfast, or at least just across the two lanes of US 101 at my back, is safe. But to my eye, a big wave would be a problem.
 
Kirk, an Oregon tsunami would be no fun, for sure, but Oregon is fortunate that most of the population is not close enough to the coast to be affected. As beautiful as the Oregon coast is, it is (certainly compared to CA) relatively unpopulated. Even Coos Bay is fairly safe from a tsunami.

Mark Lipton
 
Thanks Mark. No doubt you re right. Cold comfort though for the folks who live or visit here. I am just chanelling the strict instructions of DOGAMI: if you come here, know the escape routes and have a plan. They also point out that if there is a local earthquake induced tsunami, it is unlikely that help will come for weeks, at best.
 
We don't need to worry on the east coast since we're going to be destroyed by a meteor in September. There are even a youtube videos about it so you know it must be true. And why would NASA deny it if it wasn't true?

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m.snopes.com
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
We don't need to worry on the east coast since we're going to be destroyed by a meteor in September. There are even a youtube videos about it so you know it must be true. And why would NASA deny it if it wasn't true?

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m.snopes.com
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NASA also denied the end of the world was coming in 2012 due to the Mayan 'long count' calendar and look where that got them.
 
That was the worst article I can recall the New Yorker publishing. I wonder what happened with the fact checking. The sensationalist quotes about everything being toast west of I-5 were insane.

The story ripped off almost entirely Jerry Thompson's Cascadia's Fault, which offers a much more detailed and nuanced discussion of the topic.

Mind you, I would not want to be on the Long Beach peninsula when the big one hits - those folks will be toast. Instant traffic jam of not very mobile retirees - it's a problem.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Isn't there also a rumour that the whole country will be destroyed by some dude's victory in the upcoming elections?
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No, that was 2 elections ago.

One of the best South Park episodes ever.
 
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