[itza1]

It’s actually closer to every 500 years at the latitude Seattle and Portland are at.

The 300 year figure only applies to the southern Oregon and Northern California portion of the fault, and is based on turbidities and controversial.

Still, this is an under-appreciated risk of living in the northwest. There’s plenty of societies living in subduction zones across the planet. But few with as little awareness of their fault.

I remember talking to transplants to Seattle, I’d say there’s a 50/50 percent chance they were aware the region could produce earthquakes.

On the bright side: while we can never predict this for certain, it doesn’t appear there’s enough energy stored in the northern portion of the fault to produce a mega-thrust earthquake right now.

[Rediscover]

I transplanted to the PNW back in the 1990s, knowing well about the quakes. Previously I lived up & down the U.S. east coast and also NE Ohio. That latter gets small quakes, too, but mostly we thought it was an heavy vehicle driving by..

https://earthquaketrack.com/us-OH-Cleveland/biggest

4.5 / 23 years ago, 4.0 / 3 years ago, 3.7 /15 ..., 3.9 / 21...

Edit: s/thw/the/

[phkahler]

>> It’s actually closer to every 500 years at the latitude Seattle and Portland are at.

Well that would be about every other time the southern end goes. In that case it's still overdue for the big one, but 270 years to go for the next very big one.