
The Scariest Earthquake Is Yet to Come - timr
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/13/the-scariest-earthquake-is-yet-to-come.html
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russell
San Fransisco? Not really. The largest San Andreas earthquake is probably 8.0
plus or minus, probably an order of magnitude smaller than Japan's. The damage
will be comparable because because the fault runs through an urban area. The
most likely next earthquake will be on the Hayward or Rogers Creek faults,
still smaller. There may be hundreds killed, but not thousands, because there
wont be that type of tsunami.

Seattle OTOH is a place to avoid. Possibly a 9 earth quake. Volcanoes. Lahars
that could sweep the land nude to the ocean.

Now if you are a tsunami maven, Google La Palma tsunami (Canary Islands). That
monster will be thousands of feet high and hit the east coast with a wave
perhaps hundreds of feet high.

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psynix
I googled "La Palma tsunami" ... 1st link indicates the topic is quite
controversial: <http://www.lapalma-tsunami.com/>

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hoag
A couple points on this by one who is by no means a seismologist but who finds
the topic fascinating and reads a great deal about it just out of curiosity:

(1) First, I tend to agree with russell that Hayward is one of the two most
likely candidates for a devastating quake. This fault line seems the greatest
threat to the SF Bay Area. That said, whether San Andreas, Hayward or
otherwise, any quake on a Bay Area fault line around an M8 or larger will
wreak havoc on the Bay, especially along the Marina Green and other places
with similar landfill. And I agree such an event is inevitable within the next
few years. Fortunately, the seismic retrofits to the Golden Gate and the
current rush to rebuild the Doyle Drive Freeway should mean those structures
will withstand most anything, as will the tallest skyscrapers around the Bay.

(2) That said, I think the LA basin stands the greatest risk of failure during
a quake: from what I understand, LA functions like a bowl of Jell-o,
geographically: bounded by the ocean to the west and mountains to the north
and east, earthquake waves tend to reverberate within the "bowl" and generate
far more damage than they would elsewhere due to the formation of standing
waves.

(3) Either way, I think those of us living in earthquake-prone areas need to
realize that it is all but a mathematical certainty that we will be struck by
another devastating quake within our lifetimes. Accordingly, I think it is
foolish to not take at least elementary precautions: I for one, even I could
afford it, will simply never live in the Marina Green due to the risk of
liquefaction. Similarly, I would far rather live in a tall skyscraper condo
rather than a small home since (a) they are designed to withstand quakes far
better than smaller structures and (b) it turns out they function like wind
instruments (i.e., closed on one end, open on the other): when high frequency
earthquake waves strike a tall building, they resonate at a much lower
frequency than in a smaller building. These two factors alone -- along with
stricter building codes -- explain why we've _never_ (?) seen a modern
skyscraper fail in an earthquake.

