The Hidden Giant Earthquake Fault of the Pacific Northwest

The Hidden Giant Earthquake Fault of the Pacific Northwest Speaker: Suzanne Carbotte, Bruce Heezen Lamont Research Professor; Associate Director, Marine and Polar Geophysics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Nevis Labs: https://www.nevis.columbia.edu/ Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory: https://lamont.columbia.edu/ Science-on-Hudson lectures: https://nevis.columbia.edu/soh BlueSky: https://mastodon.social/@nevislabs Mastodon: https://bsky.app/profile/nevis.columb... Description of the talk: Subduction zones, where Earth’s tectonic plates collide and one plate is thrust beneath another, generate the largest and most destructive earthquakes and tsunamis on our planet. The Cascadia Subduction Zone lies in our backyard in the Pacific Northwest and poses the greatest earthquake hazard for the mainland United States. The last “Big One” occurred on January 26 1700 CE, as determined from a remarkable geological sleuthing story that pieced together records of a phantom tsunami in Japan and dating of drowned forests along the Washington and Oregon coasts. This talk will focus on new constraints from modern marine geophysical imaging on the part of the “megathrust” fault zone that generates the giant earthquakes but which lies hidden from view in the offshore, buried 3-12 miles deep beneath the seafloor.