New research sheds light on where a 'big' earthquake could hit

New research provides a clearer picture of a fault line hundreds of kilometers long off the West Coast that is expected to generate a large earthquake and tsunami known as a “big quake.”

The study confirms that the northern part of the fault, near Vancouver Island and Washington, is likely to produce a large earthquake.

“It gives us the first really detailed look at this huge fault that we've known for a long time but didn't have any details about,” said Edwin Nissen, an earth and ocean sciences researcher at the University of Victoria who was not involved in the research. At a fault line where tectonic plates meet.

The research, recently published in the prestigious journal Science Advances, has produced the most detailed image researchers have yet obtained of a fault zone that extends more than 900 kilometers from northern California to Vancouver Island, and they say the imaging helps them understand the size and likelihood of earthquakes.

watched Where the 'Big One' could hit Vancouver Island: A clearer picture emerges of British Columbia's 'Big One' – and it's not good A new study of the Cascadia subduction zone from California to Vancouver Island reveals a smoother, flatter fault line off the coast of British Columbia that will… One day a very violent and destructive earthquake and a massive tsunami occur.

Subduction zones are areas where two massive plates of rock, known as tectonic plates, collide, with one plate sliding under the other into the Earth's mantle.

In the Cascadia subduction zone, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate slowly slides beneath the North American plate.

Most of the time, the plates are locked in place, pressing against each other, creating increased pressure. Once every several hundred years or so, they generate a powerful earthquake and a large tsunami.

According to Susan Carbut, lead author of the study and a marine geophysicist at Columbia University, many subduction zones produce small earthquakes. These help researchers understand the faults and fragments found deep in the Earth. However, in the Cascadia region, where such earthquakes are not common, researchers did not have this information.

Susan Carbut, lead author and a marine geophysicist at Columbia University, published the research in the journal Science Advances last week. (CBC News)

About 50 researchers and crew took to the water on a ship that traced the Cascadia Fault Line. The ship was equipped with advanced imaging technology, which Nissen said is commonly used by oil and gas companies for exploration.

“Most academic scientists don't have the money that these companies have,” Nissen said. “Having this kind of data for a purely scientific purpose is really exciting.”

The researchers sent low-frequency sound pulses into the crack. A 15-kilometre-long receiver, towed behind the boat equipped with hydrophones, picked up the resulting echoes. With this information, the researchers created high-resolution images.

Watch: It's inevitable. A big earthquake is coming: Earthquakes: The 'big earthquake' is comingWhy a big earthquake is inevitable in British Columbia

They found that the surface where the Juan de Fuca and North American plates intertwine is more complex and rough than they had previously mapped.

A survey of this scale has never been conducted before, said Kelin Wang, a researcher with the Geological Survey of Canada and an assistant professor at the University of Victoria who was not involved in the research.

He said it helps explain historical earthquakes near the North Pacific, such as the one that struck North America and the resulting tsunami that reached Japan in 1700.

“Within two years, we will know a lot more about this system if we start modeling earthquakes and integrating this information,” he said.

While it's not possible to actually predict earthquakes, Carbot said the information will help risk researchers understand the potential for earthquakes and tsunamis. These models can inform building codes and tsunami evacuation plans to protect coastal residents.

“The chances are high that we will witness a strong earthquake in… [Pacific Northwest] “In the next 100 years,” Carbot said.[This research] Risk mitigation and resilience efforts are underreported.”

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