Wayback Wednesday: Over 300 years ago on 26 January 1700, the 8.7-9.2-magnitude Cascadia earthquake hit the Pacific and was felt from mid-Vancouver, Canada south along the coast to northern California, USA. The quake caused a tsunami that struck the coast of Japan. Evidence from the 2005 book ‘The Orphan Tsunami of 1700’ suggests that it took place at about 2100. Although there were no written records in the region at the time, the earthquakes precise time is nevertheless known from Japanese records of a tsunami that has not been tied to any other Pacific Rim earthquake. The most important clue linking the tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in the Pacific Northwest comes from studies of tree rings (dendrochronology), which show that red cedar trees killed by lowering of coastal forests into the tidal zone by the earthquake have outermost growth rings that formed in 1699, the last growing season before the tsunami. Local Indigenous American oral traditions describing a large quake also exist, although these do not specify the date. There are many areas in the Pacific Northwest with drowned groves of trees that also show evidence of the earthquake.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:50:58 +0000
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