Cascadia's Fault The Earthquake and Tsunami That Could Devastate North America

by Thompson, Jerry; Winchester, Simon

• ISBN13: 9781582436432
• ISBN10: 1582436436
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-01
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press

Summary

There’s a crack in the earth’s crust that runs roughly 31 miles offshore, approximately 683 miles from northern California up through Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia. The Cascadia Subduction Zone has generated massive earthquakes over and over again throughout geologic time—at least 36 major events in the last 10,000 years. This fault generates a monster earthquake about every 500 years. And the monster is due to return at any time. It could happen 200 years from now, or it could be tonight.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is virtually identical to the offshore fault that wrecked Sumatra in 2004. It will generate the same earthquake we saw in Sumatra, at magnitude 9 or higher, sending crippling shockwaves across a far wider area than any California quake. Slamming into Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver, it will send tidal waves to the shores of Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, damaging the economies of the Pacific Rim countries and their trading partners for years to come.

In light of recent massive quakes in Haiti, Chile, and Mexico, Cascadia’s Fault not only tells the story of this potentially devastating earthquake and the tsunamis it will spawn, it also warns us about the impending crisis almost unprecedented in modern history.

Table of Contents

Maps	p. v
Foreword	p. ix
Introduction	p. xv
Tremors and Ripples
Mexico City: Preview of Coming Events	p. 3
Lessons from the Rubble: A Front-Page Story	p. 13
The Alaska Megathrust: Cascadia's Northern Cousin	p. 29
Against the Wind of Convention: Plafker, Benioff, and Press	p. 43
Cauldron and Crust: The Rehabilitation of Continental Drift	p. 53
Nuke on a Fault: Early Clues in Humboldt Bay	p. 61
Proving the Doubters Wrong: The Chile Connection	p. 70
Mount St. Helens: Cascadia's Smoking Gun?	p. 78
Setbacks and Breakthroughs
Mud Cores and Lasers: The Search for Evidence	p. 95
The Whoops Factor: Cascadia's True Nature Revealed	p. 113
Quake Hunters: Finding Cascadia's Ghost Forest	p. 125
Cedars, Peat, and Turbidites: A Tipping Point at Monmouth	p. 134
Cascadia's Segmented Past: Apocalypse or Decades of Terror?	p. 147
Digital Water: Catching Waves in a Computer	p. 161
Defining the Zone: Hot Rocks and High Water	p. 177
Cracks, Missing Rings, and Native Voices: Closing In on a Killer Quake	p. 190
The Orphan Tsunami: Final Proof of Cascadia's Last Rupture	p. 200
Episodic Tremor and Slip: Tracking Cascadia with GPS	p. 212
Turbidite Timeline: Cascadia's Long and Violent History	p. 221
When's This Going to Happen? The Problems with Prediction	p. 233
Shockwaves
Facing Reality: Cascadia Equals Sumatra	p. 269
The Next Wave: Thinking the Unthinkable	p. 278
Watching It Happen, Wishing It Wouldn't	p. 288
Cascadia's Fault: Day of Reckoning	p. 300
Epilogue: Survival and Resilience, a State of Mind	p. 309
Acknowledgments	p. 319
Suggestions for Further Reading	p. 321
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