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Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

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141–149 of 149 posts

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#141
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That New Yorker article goes viral every few years - it's a well written piece and spins a great yarn, but there's some significant hyperbole and it's sources don't quite back up the claims. Yes, a 9.x will be devastating. No, everything west of i-5 will not be toast.

Good thing I'm 10 miles east from that road of doom, I'm sure I'll be safe ;-).

"East of I-5, lucky to be alive"

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#142
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not downplaying. I'm looking for ways to run the numbers to validate a hypothesis that this is a really major factor and also beginning to research mitigation. But I'm only one person. If I have to figure everything out with no help, this goes nowhere fast.

Your comment - ‘“the industrial revolution" is not really the primary cause of human caused climate change but perhaps largely coincidental’ reads to me like downplaying it? I added some math to my comment, hopefully it helps. One way to estimate might be a simplistic, volume/density one. How much carbon is there in the applicable geography/land column? In a forest, it would be the trees themselves (above ground) + t…

Thank you for taking me seriously.

From my profile:

Peatlands cover just 3 percent of the planet’s surface but they store about 30 percent of all land-based carbon, or twice as much as all of the world’s forests combined. Coastal wetlands remove atmospheric CO2 up to fifty-five times faster than rain forests.

I'm not downplaying anything. I'm just seeing data that suggests wetlands loss is a really big deal.

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#143
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment - ‘“the industrial revolution" is not really the primary cause of human caused climate change but perhaps largely coincidental’ reads to me like downplaying it? I added some math to my comment, hopefully it helps. One way to estimate might be a simplistic, volume/density one. How much carbon is there in the applicable geography/land column? In a forest, it would be the trees themselves (above ground) + t…

Thank you for taking me seriously. From my profile: Peatlands cover just 3 percent of the planet’s surface but they store about 30 percent of all land-based carbon, or twice as much as all of the world’s forests combined. Coastal wetlands remove atmospheric CO2 up to fifty-five times faster than rain forests. I'm not downplaying anything. I'm just seeing data that suggests wetlands loss is a really big deal.

Of course! I look forward to your analysis on how big a deal it is (or could be).

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "access to trees" so much as "access to large, old growth trees". The old ones with tight growth rings, large widths and long straight trunks are actually kinda rare these days. The farmed stuff is not the same, compare the growth ring per-inch

Old houses and barns.

There is a very noticeable difference between the lumber of our house (not to mention my in-laws' home) and that being sold by even specialist lumber yards.

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#145

Cascadia Subduction Zone[1] is why I never considered living in Seattle/Portland once I found out about it. Funny, cause I live in the SF Bay Area, where the earthquakes are frequent, but they can never reach the magnitude of what's possible by the Cascadia Subduction Zone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone

Your experience depends quite a bit on where you live and/or work, or, more specifically, what's underneath it. If one has nothing to do with the Millennium Tower, that is probably a plus.

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little evidence that earthquakes come as precursors to larger earthquakes. Most papers reporting such things have selection bias since they are written after the big earthquake occurred.

A fault is a series of hooks, nooking into the oppossing plate. One of them giving way, in a small event, gives off its energy partially to the surroundings (the quake) - the rest- stays as additional pressure on another rockformation. There is a lot of research on people not taking possible disasters serious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias Its understandable, but in the end also just noise for those who…

i don't really think this is a fair conceptual model for a fault nor for how an earthquake nucleates progresses and then ends. it doesn't really account for plastic deformation, fluids, the interface media (a fault has more than just two rocks touching each other, there is typically some amount of ground up particles, etc that sits at hte interface). there are faults that move aseismically (e.g., the subduction zone in mexico) that do not produce earthquakes at all. faults are a rather complex system that isn't really just hooks connected across an interface. i guess this description could be considered an asperity.

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#148
post #127
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta worry about lahars. :)

Not where I am. Mt Rainier can't reach me but maybe the mountains of Mordor could spring up? Maybe a new volcano, would take a while to build up. An earthquake can get me, I'm by one of the freshwater lakes, so there's possible water action that could get me. But probably the land is terrible by the lake, could subside, and then a wave of water will crush and then drown me.

Let us hope if it comes to that, you will be safe somehow.

Re: Multifault earthquake threat for Seattle region revealed by mass tree mortality

#149
post #65
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I moved from Seattle to the Bay Area and in the intervening 20 years it sure seems like summers in the PNW have gotten hotter than they are down here.

Longtime Bay Area resident here - I haven't looked at the data, but it seems like this area seems to be getting colder over the past ten years. If so, it's an illustration that we're facing not global warming but climate change.

Been in the Bay Area since I was 2, 58 years...

I never remember having heat waves in October or February. We also never needed AC, although maybe I'm just growing soft in my old age.

"Indian Summer" meant things might get a bit warm in September, then cool down. Weather stayed cool until the spring.

This summer has been oddly cool (at least in Berkeley), but got up to 92 2 weeks ago, which is not normal.

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