Cascadia

Those are the findings of a new study that examined the repercussions of a massive earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from Northern California up to Canada’s Vancouver Island.

The last megaquake on the Cascadia subduction zone, a magnitude 9 monster, occurred in 1700.

Currently, more than 8,000 people live in flood plain areas along estuaries in the Cascadia coastal region.

When discussing a future megaquake on the Cascadia subduction zone, “We often hear about the tsunami and the shaking. But there’s the subsidence that’s going to persist — for decades to centuries —after the earthquake, and just totally alter the flood plains,” Tina Dura, assistant professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech and the study’s lead author, said in an interview.

In the 1700 Cascadia megaquake, oral histories describe tsunamis more than 50 feet high wiping out coastal villages.