Inmate Central Inmate Central, where civil and family-friendly discourse about off-audio topics (other than religion and politics) is welcome. |
|
Short SNIP from a long article:
Take your hands and hold them palms down, middle fingertips touching. Your right hand represents the North American tectonic plate, which bears on its back, among other things, our entire continent, from One World Trade Center to the Space Needle, in Seattle. Your left hand represents an oceanic plate called Juan de Fuca, ninety thousand square miles in size. The place where they meet is the Cascadia subduction zone. Now slide your left hand under your right one. That is what the Juan de Fuca plate is doing: slipping steadily beneath North America. When you try it, your right hand will slide up your left arm, as if you were pushing up your sleeve. That is what North America is not doing. It is stuck, wedged tight against the surface of the other plate.
Without moving your hands, curl your right knuckles up, so that they point toward the ceiling. Under pressure from Juan de Fuca, the stuck edge of North America is bulging upward and compressing eastward, at the rate of, respectively, three to four millimetres and thirty to forty millimetres a year. It can do so for quite some time, because, as continent stuff goes, it is young, made of rock that is still relatively elastic. (Rocks, like us, get stiffer as they age.) But it cannot do so indefinitely. There is a backstop—the craton, that ancient unbudgeable mass at the center of the continent—and, sooner or later, North America will rebound like a spring. If, on that occasion, only the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone gives way—your first two fingers, say—the magnitude of the resulting quake will be somewhere between 8.0 and 8.6. That's the big one. If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That's the very big one.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Topic - The Really Big One - LWR 15:40:40 04/28/16 (28)
- I thought the DEA captured Juan de Fuca last year. Nf - jdaniel@jps.net 19:59:28 04/29/16 (0)
- Even if it leveled all buildings in sight - jedrider 16:57:37 04/29/16 (5)
- RE: Even if it leveled all buildings in sight - SpotcheckBilly12345 09:06:00 04/30/16 (1)
- Yes, "On the Beach" - jedrider 11:20:47 04/30/16 (0)
- RE: Even if it leveled all buildings in sight - pictureguy 22:53:41 04/29/16 (2)
- RE: Even if it leveled all buildings in sight - Inmate51 06:04:01 05/01/16 (1)
- RE: Even if it leveled all buildings in sight - pictureguy 09:21:33 05/01/16 (0)
- RE: The Really Big One - b.l.zeebub 15:54:51 04/29/16 (0)
- The sky is falling!!!! - mkuller 08:22:27 04/29/16 (2)
- RE: The sky is falling!!!! - Inmate51 16:52:41 04/29/16 (1)
- Or the... - mkuller 11:55:08 04/30/16 (0)
- And to think that the last time I passed through Medford, Oregon... - genungo 21:12:26 04/28/16 (0)
- This time around it won't be San Andreas fault... - kootenay 21:01:19 04/28/16 (0)
- That's just... - musetap 20:40:14 04/28/16 (0)
- Cali has been accused of trying to fall into the ocean for YEARS... I am waiting, nt - Smelly_Socks 20:21:36 04/28/16 (0)
- RE: The Really Big One - painter27 18:35:42 04/28/16 (4)
- 40 mile buffer - LWR 18:56:23 04/28/16 (3)
- Off shore digs? - bullethead 19:10:49 04/28/16 (2)
- RE: Off shore digs? - painter27 19:31:41 04/28/16 (1)
- RE: Off shore digs? - bullethead 19:38:58 04/28/16 (0)
- Source - LWR 17:22:22 04/28/16 (3)
- RE: Source - Inmate51 20:03:49 04/28/16 (2)
- RE: The Really Big One - The Bored 17:12:09 04/28/16 (0)
- RE: The Really Big One - 6bq5 16:12:33 04/28/16 (0)
- Like this? - mkuller 15:43:21 04/28/16 (0)
- The above just won a Pulitzer Prise - LWR 15:42:45 04/28/16 (0)