Scientists Warning Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake and Tsunami ( FEMA WILL HOLD A DRILL TO PREPARE FOR A 9.0 CASCADIA SUBDUCTION ZONE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI)

In order to reduce the risk of an earthquake and reduce and mitigate its effects, it is necessary to predict where and when a future, large earthquake may occur. For example, it would be important to know when such an earthquake will hit, where it will strike, and what the level of its destructiveness may be. Earthquake prediction at the present time is not an exact science, and forecasts of earthquake occurrences have not been very accurate. Presently predictions are given in statistical terms.

For example, when a prediction is made that : here is a 90% chance that an earthquake will occur in the next 50 years”, it does not mean that this earthquake cannot happen tomorrow or it may not be delayed by 50 years. Thus, present predictions are not within a reasonable time frame that can be of usefulness to planners, policy makers, and those in government that deal with public safety.
To understand earthquake prediction, three different time frames have been assigned by scientists: long term, intermediate and short-term predictions. Long term prediction involves a time frame of a decade or more and can only be general and with very limited usefulness for public safety. Intermediate term prediction would fall into a time span of a few weeks to a few years, and again it would not be of great practical usefulness. It is the short-term prediction, that is specific information on the time and location of an earthquake given within days, weeks, months – not years – that would be useful for any kind of public safety and evacuation.
Several specific geophysical, geological, and chemical methods are presently used for earthquake prediction. To the list of geological and geophysical events and precursors we should add one more method that has been used with much success in China: that is the monitoring the behavior of animals before quakes.

Within the last 24 hours, 45 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater have struck Alaska, and 25 of them were of magnitude 4.0 or greater. The worst one had a magnitude of 6.2, but none of the earthquakes did much damage because none of them hit heavily populated areas. But the reason why all of this shaking is causing so much concern is because the “Ring of Fire” runs right along the southern Alaska coastline, and all of the earthquakes except for one were along the southern coast.

After running along the southern Alaska coastline, the Ring of Fire goes south along the west coast of Canada, the United States and Mexico. What affects one part of a fault network will often trigger something along another portion of the same fault network, and so many living on the west coast are watching the shaking in Alaska with deep concern.

Tuesdays “violent” Magnitude 7.1 earthquake near Mexico City has not had any after-shocks. NONE! Geologists are now panicking that the strong quake was, in fact, a “FORESHOCK” of a very much LARGER EARTHQUAKE coming within a day or two.

The last time a Magnitude 7 or above earthquake took place with NO aftershocks was ONE DAY before the staggering Magnitude 9.2 which destroyed much of Japan in March, 2011.

The fact that there have been no aftershocks from the Mexico quake means something utterly horrific is quite likely either for that area or, worse, somewhere else along the same (or nearby) fault system.

It is also worth noting that Tuesday’s Magnitude 7.1 was farther NORTH than the several weeks previous Magnitude 8.4 which struck in Mexico. So the tension is moving NORTH . . . . toward California.

It is worth noting that the same – and nearby – fault system connects directly to the San Andreas Fault running through California.

For a long time scientists have acknowledged that a major Cascadia subduction zone earthquake is way overdue, and when one finally strikes the devastation that we could see in the Pacific northwest is likely to be off the charts. In fact, some scientists believe that the coming Cascadia subduction zone earthquake could potentially be as high as magnitude 9.0…

The Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of North America spans from northern California to southern British Columbia. This subduction zone can produce earthquakes as large as magnitude 9 and corresponding tsunamis.

Just in case you missed it…and you probably did…FEMA Will Hold A Drill To Prepare For A 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake And Tsunami next week.

Just in case you missed it…and you probably did…there is a gargantuan, 700 mile long quake-maker referred to as the Cascadia Subduction Zone that rests at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the American northwest where the seabed meets the North American tectonic plate. According to experts, this behemoth has the potential to unleash the worst natural disaster in the history of North America should it rupture entire.

FEMA will be conducting a large scale drill that has been named “Cascadia Rising” that will simulate the effects of a magnitude-9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and an accompanying west coast tsunami dozens of feet tall.

According to the official flier for the event, more than “50 counties, plus major cities, tribal nations, state and federal agencies, private sector businesses, and non-governmental organizations across three states—Washington, Oregon and Idaho—will be participating.”

In addition to “Cascadia Rising,” U.S. Northern Command will be holding five other exercises simultaneously. According to the final draft of the Cascadia Rising drill plan, those five exercises are entitled “Ardent Sentry 2016,″ “Vigilant Guard,” “Special Focus Exercise,” “Turbo Challenge” and “Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore.” The primary scenario that of all of these participants will be focusing on will be one that involves a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone followed by a giant tsunami that could displace up to a million people from northern California to southern Canada.

We have never seen such a disaster before in all of U.S. history.

Do they know something that the rest of us do not?

It is funny that they are preparing to deal with the effects of a magnitude-9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, because that is precisely the size of earthquake that I warned about in an article back in March.

The San Andreas Fault in southern California gets more headlines, but the Cascadia Subduction Zone is a much larger threat by far. This fault zone is where the Juan de Fuca plate meets the North American plate, and it stretches approximately 700 miles from northern Vancouver Island all the way down to northern California.

If a magnitude-9.0 earthquake were to strike, the immense shaking and subsequent tsunami would cause damage on a scale that is hard to even imagine right now. Perhaps this is why FEMA feels such a need to get prepared for this type of disaster, because the experts assure us that it is most definitely coming someday. The following comes from the official website of the “Cascadia Rising” exercise:

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) and the resulting tsunami is the most complex disaster scenario that emergency management and public safety officials in the Pacific Northwest could face. Cascadia Rising is an exercise to address that disaster.

Emergency Operations and Coordination Centers (EOC/ECCs) at all levels of government and the private sector will activate to conduct a simulated field response operation within their jurisdictions and with neighboring communities, state EOCs, FEMA, and major military commands.

If you don’t think that the scenario that they are studying is realistic, perhaps you should consider the fact that the largest earthquake in the history of the continental United States stuck along the Cascadia Subduction Zone back in 1700. The following comes from CNN:

In fact, “the Cascadia” already has made history, causing the largest earthquake in the continental United States on January 26, 1700. That’s when the Cascadia unleashed one of the world’s biggest quakes, causing a tsunami so big that it rampaged across the Pacific and damaged coastal villages in Japan.

Yes, we all remember the big Hollywood blockbuster about the San Andreas fault. But if they wanted to be more realistic, they should have made the movie about the Cascadia Subduction Zone. According to a professor of geophysics at Oregon State University, the Cascadia Subduction Zone has the potential to create an earthquake “almost 30 times more energetic” than anything the San Andreas Fault can produce.

Everyone knows the Cascadia’s cousin in California: the San Andreas Fault. It gets all the scary glamor, with even a movie this year, “San Andreas,” dramatizing an apocalypse in the western U.S.

Truth is, the San Andreas is a lightweight compared with the Cascadia.

The Cascadia can deliver a quake that’s many times stronger — plus a tsunami.

“Cascadia can make an earthquake almost 30 times more energetic than the San Andreas to start with, and then it generates a tsunami at the same time, which the side-by-side motion of the San Andreas can’t do,” said Chris Goldfinger, a professor of geophysics at Oregon State University.

And the kind of tsunami that would be created by such a massive quake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone would absolutely dwarf the massive tsunami that struck Japan back in 2011. In fact, an article in the New Yorker quoted the head of the FEMA division that oversees Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska as saying that “everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

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.

… 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, everything west of Interstate 5 covers 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.We live at a time when the crust of our planet is becoming increasingly unstable. Based on my research, I have come to the conclusion that we will soon see major earth changes on a scale that most of us would never even dare to imagine.All over the world the Ring of Fire is roaring to life, and the Cascadia Subduction Zone lies directly along the Ring of Fire. Just last week, I wrote about the alarming earthquake swarms that we have seen directly under Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, and now we have learned that FEMA is about to hold a major drill that is going to simulate a magnitude-9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and an accompanying west coast tsunami dozens of feet in height.Of course most Americans aren’t concerned about this threat at all.Most Americans just assume that life will continue to go on normally just as it always has.But I happen to agree with the experts that are promising us that an absolutely massive earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone will strike someday, and when that happens life in America will be permanently altered.

The Oregon Resilience Plan

 – Cascadia: Oregon’s Greatest Natural Threat –the earthquake were to happen under current conditions. Second, define performance targets for thesector. The targets represent the desired timeframes for restoring functions in a future Cascadiaearthquake

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in other words, the timeframes within which functions must be restored if Oregon is to beresilient. Finally, provide a series of recommendations to OSSPAC for changes in practice and policy that,if implemented, would ensure that Oregon reaches the desired resilience targets over the next 50 years.The products from the various task groups were reviewed by an advisory group of subject matterexperts to ensure that the material was accurate, complete, and up-to-date. OSSPAC then reviewed therecommendations and selected and endorsed those that the commission felt offered the most effectiveway to achieve resilience to a great Cascadia disaster.

Great Earthquakes on the Cascadia Subduction Zone

For the last twenty-five years, the scientific community has been aware of the possibility that a greatearthquake caused by the Cascadia subduction zone could strike the Pacific Northwest. Now, afterdecades of research and recent great earthquakes in Sumatra, Chile, and Japan, awareness of this threatis widespread in Oregon, and we know enough to paint a picture of what Oregon might look like aftersuch an earthquake. Oregon is a geologic mirror image of northern Japan (see Figure 1.1). In both places,the Pacific Ocean floor is sliding beneath the adjacent continents along giant faults called subductionzones. The scientific understanding of the Cascadia threat makes it clear that very large earthquakes will

occur in Oregon’s future, and that our societal and physical structures are poorly prepared to meet the

threat unless we take action now to start building the necessary resilience.

What Are Subduction Zone Earthquakes?

The surface of the earth is broken into dozens of tectonic plates

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continent-sized slabs of rigid rock thatslowly slide across the more pliant mantle of the earth beneath. Moving at speeds of a few inches peryear, the plates can pull apart, slide past each other, or collide head on. Where an oceanic and acontinental plate collide, a subduction zone forms, as one plate is forced beneath the other, deep intothe softer rock of the mantle. A great arc of subduction zones surrounds the Pacific Ocean, producing

what geologists call the “Ring of Fire.” In Japan, the ocean floor of the Pacific Plate moves towards the

west, sliding beneath the Eurasian Plate that supports the islands of Japan. The Pacific Northwest is ageologic mirror image of Japan, with the Pacific Ocean floor moving towards the east, sliding beneathOregon, Washington, and Northern California along a 600-mile fault called the Cascadia subductionzone.

In Japan, there has never been any doubt that great subduction earthquakes are possible: Japan’s long

written history has recorded many such events, with the 2011 Tohoku earthquake being the most recentand one of the most powerful and destructive. In that earthquake, a section of the Pacific Ocean floormeasuring 300 miles long and 125 miles wide lurched as much as 100 feet down the subduction zone,causing a great magnitude 9.0 earthquake. The eastern edge of the Eurasian Plate, which had beenslowly bending for centuries under the relentless pressure of subduction, snapped back during the

The Oregon Resilience Plan

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Cascadia: Oregon’s Greatest Natural Threat – earthquake, displacing trillions of tons of seawater and triggering a catastrophic tsunami. The release ofthe bent Eurasian Plate caused land along the coast of Japan to permanently sink several feet, and thestrong shaking from the earthquake caused widespread landslides on steep slopes (both on land andundersea) and widespread liquefaction of soft sediments on land.

Figure 1.1: Oregon is a geologic mirror-image of Northern Japan. In both places, the Pacific Ocean floor is sliding beneath the adjacentcontinents along giant faults called subduction zones (Source: Graphic by Dan Coe, DOGAMI).

In 1984, when seismologists first proposed that Cascadia might produce similar earthquakes, there wasconsiderable doubt. Research since then has confirmed that Cascadia has a long history of greatsubduction earthquakes and that energy for the next great earthquake is currently building along thefault. Geologic studies (see Figure 1.2) have uncovered evidence of the coastal subsidence, tsunamis,landslides, and liquefaction that were produced by past Cascadia earthquakes, and ultra-sensitive GPSmeasurements show that the Oregon coast is moving eastward a few inches per year along with thePacific Ocean floor, motion that will be abruptly reversed during the next great subduction earthquake.There is no scientific doubt that another great subduction earthquake will strike the Pacific Northwest;the questions now are how soon, how large, and how destructive that earthquake will be.