Why didn't the 7.0 California earthquake cause a tsunami?

Fortunately, this did not happen. Photo: Sean Davie

Although coastal Californians live in an area at risk from a tsunami, the threat does not appear to be significant because Californians have never seen such a threat before. In my lifetime, there have been some minor tsunamis that have destroyed ports and marinas, but nothing like what we saw on the news like the 2011 tsunami in Japan, or the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

So, on December 5, when my phone alerted me of the possibility of a tsunami from a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the waters of Northern California, I figured this might finally be the case. After all, it has been more than three decades since a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake struck coastal California. In my lifetime, this was unprecedented.

I checked my Surfline cameras and updated my social media channels for news about the tsunami. But an hour or so after the alert was issued, it was cancelled. It begs the question, why didn't such a powerful earthquake cause a tsunami? The answer lies in the type of earthquake that occurred, not necessarily its strength.

The earthquake that caused the alert, as it turned out, occurred on a strike-slip fault where two tectonic plates slide past each other, side by side. If the earthquake had been caused by a fault in a subduction zone – where one plate slides under another – it could have raised the ocean floor and displaced large amounts of water.

The epicenter of the quake was 100 miles southwest of Cape Mendocino in an area known as the “Triple Junction.” It is where the Pacific, North American, and Juan de Fuca/Jorda plates meet. It marks the end of the San Andreas Fault and the transition to subduction zones in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

Therefore, there are a lot of different types of tectonic possibilities in this area. This time the earthquake happened to be caused by a strike-slip fault that allowed the Juan de Fuca/Jorda plate to move eastward relative to the Pacific plate. Crisis averted.

However, it is only a matter of time before a tsunami hits California again. In 1946, an 8.2 magnitude earthquake in Alaska caused a tsunami that submerged parts of the state. An 1812 earthquake near Santa Barbara caused a tsunami that destroyed coastal villages. Ancient lore tells of a huge tsunami in California in 1700, which dried up canoes among the trees.

With the population of California rising to forty million people, there is no doubt that the next huge tsunami wave will be more devastating than its predecessors.

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