Can a demon earthquake actually immerse parts of Pacific Northwest?
A new study is speculation and fear about the risks of a large earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone, including large -scale floods in California
Sitaka was submerged from sub -part during an earthquake in a spruce stump, Nescovin, an earthquake area about 1,600 years ago.
Marley Miller/UCG/Universal Image Group through Getty Image
Horror headlines about the sinking of Pacific Northwest in the sea are roaming online, with warnings that a major earthquake in the notorious Cascadia subduction zone can be worse than expected.
What is behind this new alarm? Fortunately, research has not revealed a new risk that Seattle will become the lost city of Atlantis. Instead, scientists have examined the combined effects of two famous events: climate change from sea-level growth and potential results of a large earthquake in the region. It was already known that the sea level along the coast of the northern California, Oregon and Washington states is estimated to increase from 1.3 to 2.9 feet by 2100 due to a warming climate. It was also well known that the beach could slip up to 6.5 feet due to 8 or high earthquake in the area. What is the new study published on 28 April In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Adds are understanding how much additional land will be eliminated at high risk of floods due to these two combined threats.
Why does a sea-level case grow?
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While the eastern coast is already looking at the effects of beach erosion and rising sea level, Pacific Northwest (PNW) is protected by its geology – so far. The coast from Northern California to Vancouver Island in British Columbia sits on a subduction zone, where the Juan de Fooka, Explorer and Gorda Oceanic plates slips under the North American continental plate – which makes our planet. Right now the mistake system is quiet, which means that it has not a major earthquake for more than 300 years, and the coast is gradually growing from one inch parts each year. This geological upliftment, a result of the interaction of tectonic plates, increases sea levels in many areas, so PNW is relatively reflected by effects such as excessive flood incidence or coastal erosion.
But in the last 7,000 years, at least 11 major earthquakes have killed the Cascadia region where these faults remain. The last of these temples took place in 1700, and geologists can still see the evidence of this, making the beach dropped between 1.6 and 6.5 feet in an eye blink. Tina Dura, a coastal geologist at Virginia Tech and the first writer Tina Dura, says, “We have a truly inherent organic soil that suddenly exceeds this really clean jowar mud, indicating that she was suddenly dropped and was originally converted into tidal flats and the first writer in Virginia Tech says Tina Dur.
No one had actually studied, Dura says, this sudden sub-level had a joint effect and slow drainage due to increase in sea levels.
How much cascadia will be prone to floods?
Dura and his colleagues saw the earthquake landscapes, which would yield separate range from 1.6 to 6.5 feet. He compared the effects of such earthquakes at today’s sea level to 2100 with them at sea level. By that time, the increase in sea level is expected to further the geological uplift of the PNW and reach 2.9 feet.
The team found that if an earthquake that causes a yield of more than six feet today, the 100 -year flooding in Astruaries in Cascadia will expand up to 115 square miles. This earthquake was to occur in the year 2100, with the additional pressures of sea level growth, those people would be expanded up to 145 square miles. It is seen today that the flood-prone area will be triple.
How concerned should we be?
A magnitude in Cascadia 8 In the event of 8 earthquakes, the subssence will not be the first issue in one’s mind. A large egg earthquake can cause a devastating tsunami that will immediately endanger life and structures. The new study focuses on areas within a height of about six feet of current 100-year flooding, says Dura, and earthquake-powered tsunamis may exceed 30 feet.
A good comparison can be a 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 227,000 people around the Indian Ocean or T&A’s 2011; Hoku Earthquake and Tsunami who killed more than 16,000 people in Japan. Both of them, but the severity of the early disaster, removed the concerns about the coastal recession.
Dura says that it is important to understand subsidy for preparation. Municipal planners may want to avoid construction of new power substations or waste water treatment plants in those areas that can become floodgains. (There is 1 percent of the flood opportunity every year in the 100-year flooding.) Immediately after the earthquake can affect at least bridges, roadways and airports storm-driven flood efforts and rescue efforts. And many people can find that the property which was once protected from floods, is now submerged regularly, especially in constructed areas such as the sea shore, ore, gearharhart, ore., And Grace Harbor County in the state of Washington, says Dura.
“Tsunami is a process that takes from minutes to hours after the earthquake,” she says, “while, once a tsunami, we are still going to the land level that has fallen down and has changed the mark of the post of flood.”
