Earthquakes in the Northwest
Part of the Public Service Announcement (PSA) Video collection from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
This video talks briefly about earthquakes in the Northwest.
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Video Transcript:
Narrator Speaking:
People don't always think of the Puget Sound area as being "Earthquake Country", but in fact it is. Geological evidence suggests that this area has been seismically active for a very long time. We interviewed local geologist and associate professor of geology at the University of Puget Sound, Dr. Mike Valentine. He showed us some of the geological evidence that exists at Point Defiance in Tacoma, WA.
Dr. Valentine Speaking:
What we're looking at here is a group of deposits that were probably left during the last ice age or one of the ones just before it. So they're relativily recent, geologically speaking. You can see that they're mostly clays and that they're cut by this large fracture or crack that runs through it that's filled with a more sandy material. What this suggests is that this area was effected by some kind of seismic event. And probably some sizable amount of ground shaking occured that resulted in this crack opening up and the sand being injected in along it. This tells us that the area is seismically active. We have earthquakes here and they'd have to be fair sized or fairly close to the surface in order to produce enough ground shaking to create a feature like this here.
We also have evidence that this area is active because we've had fairly sizable earthquakes here in 1949 and 1965. And as recently as 1700 there was a really large scale earthquake sort of the size of the Alaska earthquake of 1964 or the San Fransisco quake of 1906. So this is an area that is in fact very seismically active. We are in fact in "earthquake country" here in Tacoma.
Narrator Speaking:
Professor Valentine points out that this fault extends from the cliff face just shown. Here we see that the fault continues along the ground and into the waters of Puget Sound. The scars of seismic activity extend far beyond what is clearly visible, here, and in many areas around the Northwest.
Earthquakes in the Northwest
- Produced by FEMA Region 10 - 2002
- Ryan Ike - Outreach Coordinator and Filming
- Jeff Markham - Editing and Filming
- Mike Valentine - Narration
- Chris JT - Narration
- Museum of the City of San Fransisco - Film Footage Contribution
- The Seattle Times Company - Photo Contribution
- Roger Easton - Photo Contribution
- Scott Simmons - Photo Contribution
- John A. Vink - Photo Contribution
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