Not clear if you mean he’s independently estimating the earthquake risk, or researching previous expert estimates of that risk. From this source, estimates of “an earthquake” in the next 50 years is anywhere from 7.4%-41%, depending on assumptions that are controversial within the earthquake prediction field. I put “an earthquake” in quotes because while they’re definitely talking about a Juan de Fuca plate subduction, this source doesn’t model the range of magnitude estimates based on these assumptions—just the chance of a quake happening at all.
What I see is estimates that such a quake would be magnitude 8+ to 9.
Bellingham has some info on how they expect the quake to affect it, but it sounds like the main thing w/ regard to tsunamis is to check that the building, and the homes of the researchers, are not in the inundation zone. For earthquakes, if it’s relatively recent architecture, it should avoid collapse, though it may be unusable afterward. I’ve spoken with one expert who was involved in retrofitting older brick Seattle buildings for earthquake preparedness. It seems like something you should be able to consult with prior to any building purchase.
This seems like a very confused way of thinking about earthquakes.
In the past month, there were 4 earthquakes associated with the Juan del Fuca subduction. All were around Richter 2.5 and no one cared.
While I suppose it’s possible for a fault to produce small and large earthquakes both more often than in between, this strikes me as rather unlikely. Generally an analysis of earthquake risk should begin be deciding what magnitude earthquakes to care about, and then calculate probabilities.
(When we say that the Seattle area is particularly at-risk, that’s because architecture standards there contain very little earthquake-resilience. Which may not be relevant here. The actual fault line is among the less active on the west coast of North America.)
Not clear if you mean he’s independently estimating the earthquake risk, or researching previous expert estimates of that risk. From this source, estimates of “an earthquake” in the next 50 years is anywhere from 7.4%-41%, depending on assumptions that are controversial within the earthquake prediction field. I put “an earthquake” in quotes because while they’re definitely talking about a Juan de Fuca plate subduction, this source doesn’t model the range of magnitude estimates based on these assumptions—just the chance of a quake happening at all.
What I see is estimates that such a quake would be magnitude 8+ to 9.
Bellingham has some info on how they expect the quake to affect it, but it sounds like the main thing w/ regard to tsunamis is to check that the building, and the homes of the researchers, are not in the inundation zone. For earthquakes, if it’s relatively recent architecture, it should avoid collapse, though it may be unusable afterward. I’ve spoken with one expert who was involved in retrofitting older brick Seattle buildings for earthquake preparedness. It seems like something you should be able to consult with prior to any building purchase.
This seems like a very confused way of thinking about earthquakes.
In the past month, there were 4 earthquakes associated with the Juan del Fuca subduction. All were around Richter 2.5 and no one cared.
While I suppose it’s possible for a fault to produce small and large earthquakes both more often than in between, this strikes me as rather unlikely. Generally an analysis of earthquake risk should begin be deciding what magnitude earthquakes to care about, and then calculate probabilities.
(When we say that the Seattle area is particularly at-risk, that’s because architecture standards there contain very little earthquake-resilience. Which may not be relevant here. The actual fault line is among the less active on the west coast of North America.)