The 1700 Cascadia earthquake was a magnitude 8.7 to 9.2 megathrust earthquake that occurred in the Cascadia subduction zone in 1700. The earthquake involved the Juan de Fuca Plate underlying the Pacific ocean, from mid-Vancouver Island in British Columbia, southwest Canada, along the Pacific Northwest coast. The length of the fault rupture was about 1000 kilometers (600 miles) with an average slip of 20 meters.
The earthquake caused a tsunami tha...
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The 1700 Cascadia earthquake was a magnitude 8.7 to 9.2 megathrust earthquake that occurred in the Cascadia subduction zone in 1700. The earthquake involved the Juan de Fuca Plate underlying the Pacific ocean, from mid-Vancouver Island in British Columbia, southwest Canada, along the Pacific Northwest coast. The length of the fault rupture was about 1000 kilometers (600 miles) with an average slip of 20 meters.
The earthquake caused a tsunami that struck the coast of Japan, and may also be linked to the Bonneville slide.
Evidence supporting the occurrence of the 1700 earthquake has been gathered into the 2005 book The Orphan Tsunami of 1700, by geologist Brian Atwater and others.
The evidence suggests that it took place at about 9:00 PM on January 26, 1700. Although there were no written records in the region at the time, the earthquake's precise time is nevertheless known from Japanese records of a tsunami that has not been tied to any other Pacific Rim earthquake. The most important...
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