{"id":880,"date":"2010-01-09T23:56:43","date_gmt":"2010-01-10T07:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/?p=880"},"modified":"2010-01-09T23:57:45","modified_gmt":"2010-01-10T07:57:45","slug":"geological-fun-fact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/2010\/01\/09\/geological-fun-fact\/","title":{"rendered":"Geological Fun Fact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c2\u00a0Today&#8217;s 6.5 earthquake in Northern California occured at the <a href=\"http:\/\/woodshole.er.usgs.gov\/operations\/obs\/rmobs_pub\/html\/mendocino.html\">Mendocino Triple Junction<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s the southern terminus of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnsn.org\/HAZARDS\/CASCADIA\/cascadia_zone.html\">Cascadia Fault<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The Cascadia fault\u00c2\u00a0runs off shore of Oregon and Washington and is capable of causing magnitude 9+ earthquakes, like the one in Indonesia five years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Those massive quakes happen when the fault rips open from one end to the other, like a zipper.\u00c2\u00a0 Such an earthquake would devestate Seattle, Portland\u00c2\u00a0AND Vancouver, BC.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, AND.\u00c2\u00a0 A full rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone would rip apart\u00c2\u00a0the ocean floor from Northern California to halfway up Vancouver Island, so I&#8217;m talking about a 700 mile long tear in the earth.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The word &#8220;epicenter&#8221; has no useful meaning here. \u00c2\u00a0There would also\u00c2\u00a0almost certainly be a tsunami that would hit pretty much every low lying coastal city in Oregon and Washington within minutes of the quake,\u00c2\u00a0and it\u00c2\u00a0would race across the ocean at 600 miles an hour and hit\u00c2\u00a0Alaska, Hawaii, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnsn.org\/HAZARDS\/CASCADIA\/historic_records.html\">Japan<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Massive earthquakes along the Cascadia Subduction Zone happen about every 300-600 years, and the last one occured in 1700.<\/p>\n<p>Let me repeat:\u00c2\u00a0 Today&#8217;s quake in California was on the same fault that will someday destroy Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>So&#8230;\u00c2\u00a0 Got batteries for your flashlight&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, here&#8217;s a picture of Cape Mendocino, on the coast of Northern California, just on shore from the Mendocino Triple Junction:<br \/>\n<a title=\"Mattole Beach, Petrolia, CA by Redbeard Math Pirate, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/redbeardmathpirate\/3433307093\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3319\/3433307093_71cdaabdd0_m.jpg\" alt=\"Mattole Beach, Petrolia, CA\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c2\u00a0Today&#8217;s 6.5 earthquake in Northern California occured at the Mendocino Triple Junction.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s the southern terminus of the Cascadia Fault.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The Cascadia fault\u00c2\u00a0runs off shore of Oregon and Washington and is capable of causing magnitude 9+ earthquakes, like the one in Indonesia five years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Those massive quakes happen when the fault rips open from one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[107,106,108],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884,"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathpirate.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}