Researchers probe natural environments near subduction zones to decrypt underlying mechanisms of major earthquakes.
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| The Cascadia subduction zone. Credit: NASA/ISS |
Along the west coast of North America, the Cascadia subduction zone stretches more than 1,000 kilometers from Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, Calif. It produced a magnitude 9 megathrust earthquake about 300 years ago, one of the biggest quakes in world history.
Scientists know that Cascadia will produce another earthquake at some point in the future; the question is how soon. The odds of it happening in the next 50 years are 1 in 3. The Federal Emergency Management Agency projects that Cascadia’s next megathrust earthquake will cause thousands of deaths and injuries and leave millions in need of shelter, food, and water.
(Thanks to GRC Member Marcelo Lippmann, Staff Scientist (retired) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the submission.)
