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The Really Big One

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Re: The Really Big One

#81

Post by cossatot »

someear wrote: post #56

I like to think about how I'd react in the 15 minutes I have between the earthquake and tsunami. How tall would this tsunami be? Quick googling shows the tallest one ever is 524 meters. Assuming the tsunami is that tall, going into tall buildings might not work - tallest building in Seattle, Columbia Tower, is 287 meters (+50m in elevation increase), and is a few blocks from the waterfront . Best bet is to run/bike u…

Fortunately, the tallest tsunami was from a rockfall in a fjord[1], not from a subduction zone earthquake. They are typically ~10 m, and it's really the wavelength, not the amplitude, that is a problem because there is so much water that the inundation is more like a flash flood than a quick slap from a breaking wave.

Second, I don't believe tsunamis from subduction zone earthquakes on the Cascadia trench will impact Seattle that much, because (as you may be able to see from your location) the Olympic peninsula is in between you and the trench. The wave coming through the Strait of Juan de Fuca will spread outward into Puget Sound and mostly dissipate against Camano and Whidbey Islands.

The big tsunami hazard for Seattle itself is the from an earthquake on the Seattle fault[2].

[1]: http://geology.com/records/biggest-tsunami.shtml [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2AGlhuCQ-A

Re: The Really Big One

#82

Post by rconti »

someear wrote: post #56

I like to think about how I'd react in the 15 minutes I have between the earthquake and tsunami. How tall would this tsunami be? Quick googling shows the tallest one ever is 524 meters. Assuming the tsunami is that tall, going into tall buildings might not work - tallest building in Seattle, Columbia Tower, is 287 meters (+50m in elevation increase), and is a few blocks from the waterfront . Best bet is to run/bike u…

If you DID go up into a tall building, what's your plan? Jump into the water just as the building's collapsing?

Re: The Really Big One

#83

Post by graycat »

Reminds me of the movie quote: "Wiped clean by the wrath of God.", I suspect from one of the movies Indiana Jones.

Right, at

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Lost_Ark

> Brody: However, about a year after the pharaoh had returned to Egypt, the city of Tanis was consumed by the desert in a sandstorm that lasted a whole year. Wiped clean by the wrath of God.

Re: The Really Big One

#84

Post by soperj »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #66
soperj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly not the only earthquake I've felt in the 15 years that I've lived here, just the biggest. Which is definitely different from not feeling a quiver in many lifetimes.

I live north east of Vancouver and have lived my whole life without even a shake. Most of my friends (from all over) have never felt one either. He didn't say "everywhere", just "many places".

Were you not there in 2001? Because that was pretty hard to miss.

Re: The Really Big One

#85

Post by acheron »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #38
iamjs wrote: post #15

Does the New Yorker just inject random comics into their stories? None of these illustrations appear to be related to the content.

It's worse than that: none of those illustrations appear to be related to humor . Edit: Looks like we've got a couple of New Yorker cartoon aficionados on HN. I guess I'll have to save my stinging comments for edgier content, such as Doonsbury and Garfield. /s

Remember, we're talking about an organization that apparently employs Andy Borowitz. Possibly his mere existence sucks any humor out of all surrounding content.

Re: The Really Big One

#86

Post by Sven7 »

nostrademons wrote: post #72
idlewords wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can't really simulate the systemic effects of a really major quake (like a scenario where Mountain View is out of power for weeks).

The DiRT drills include the simultaneous loss of whole offices, including the complete obliteration of the Bay Area. Participants are instructed to pretend that they've been eaten by zombies and not communicate with anyone in a remote office, and that's backed up (as described in the article) by cutting the network links to & from the Mountain View corporate office. Now, there may certainly be larger systemic effects…

What happens if Google goes down for a while? Is it really that bad? Yes, Gmail and Drive may cause all kinds of chaos but I think I can survive quite a while without the search engine and YouTube.

Re: The Really Big One

#87

Post by fizixer »

In recent past, I had this thought that Silicon Valley is sitting on top of, or very close to, potential future fault activity. And I have a hard time believing that the key component of human civilization (technology) is so vulnerable, and was built after the 1906 disaster.

It's one of the factors I would consider when deciding if I really want to move to west coast.

Re: The Really Big One

#88

Post by VikingCoder »

After watching the Japanese Tsunami, it got me wondering about a weather-balloon-like device.

You strap it on like a life jacket, and you wait for the wave to come your way. As it approaches, you pull the cord. Something that looks like a weather balloon inflates, extends the length of a tether, and then you float a few hundred feet in the air, and then float back down a while later.

Why is this a dumb idea?

Re: The Really Big One

#89

Post by snowwrestler »

brock_r wrote: post #53
nkoren wrote: post #27

I used to live in Portland, and thought about this impending catastrophe a lot. Once -- under the influence of intoxicants, most likely -- I came up with a way of dramatically reducing its impact. It's a batshit crazy solution which will never actually happen -- but even when I'm sober, I still think it would work. Here's what I'm thinking: the major problem with a disaster like this is the uncertainty surrounding it…

Raise your hand if you think intentionally cracking the eggshell of our planet using synchronized nuclear bombs might be a bad idea...

I'm not sure it's possible. I'd guess that drilling deep enough into an active subduction zone would likely encounter temperatures above what any nuclear bomb could sustain long enough to detonate.

Re: The Really Big One

#90

Post by cossatot »

soperj wrote: post #5

"The Pacific Northwest sits squarely within the Ring of Fire. Off its coast, an oceanic plate is slipping beneath a continental one. Inland, the Cascade volcanoes mark the line where, far below, the Juan de Fuca plate is heating up and melting everything above it. In other words, the Cascadia subduction zone has, as Goldfinger put it, “all the right anatomical parts.” Yet not once in recorded history has it caused a…

As 3JPLW mentioned, the 2001 Nisqually event was in the subducting Juan de Fuca slab, not on the plate interface, and was quite deep (52 km). The Cascadia plate interface itself does have quite regular 'slow earthquakes'[1] at the lower edge of the locked zone, where M~6 earthquakes occur over about a week and a half, and don't produce much shaking. We just found out about them by watching patterns in GPS data from fixed locations.

Regardless, Goldfinger is still correct on all the statements that you've quoted. In addition to the scientific content, it still is possible to spend several lifetimes in the PNW (which does extend beyond King County) in between the 1700 event and the 2001 event. Granted, there was the 1872 event near Lake Chelan [2], which was the biggest PNW quake since 1700, but still... there were multiple generations of people born in between 1872 and 2001.

[1]: http://www.geodesy.cwu.edu/instruments/tilt/explanation_ETS....

[2]: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/scientists-may-be-c...

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