The lead author of a recent study about how major earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest have been historically linked to seismic events in California, specifically on the San Andreas Fault, says he sees some upside to the findings, at least for those of us in California.
Those among us who pay close attention to new earthquake science likely heard about the study that came out this fall that found evidence of the historical “partial synchronization” of the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest and the San Andreas Fault. The study’s authors looked at the geological record of major seismic events on the Cascadia subduction zone and on the San Andreas, and found that major quakes on the northern San Andreas Fault were likely directly triggered by larger events in the Cascadia, occurring minutes, hours, or even days or months after.
Specifically, the 9.0+-magnitude event that occurred in the Pacific Northwest in the year 1700 — which was covered in a widely read 2015 New Yorker piece — triggered a similarly large quake on the northern San Andreas that occurred within 20 minutes to one year after the Cascadia event. Sedimentary evidence from beneath the sea floor confirms the two events were closely linked, the study says…