Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Earthquake, tidal wave, coming to a beach near you... Sooner than you think.

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/extreme-earth/01-big-one-earthquake-could-devastate-pacific-northwest/article_view?b_start:int=2&-C MONSTER CASCADIA QUAKE
Copalis Ghost Forest (Foreground)

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 they are going to have a Tsunami drill on the north coast. These drills have been going on, on the north coast since time began. In the coastal Indian legends there is a saying, "when the sky thunders, seek low places. When the Earth thunders seek high places". What that basically means is, "In a lightning storm stay low. In an earthquake... run for the hills." Darn good advice, even in the modern world. With all of our technology, we still have no idea how to control earthquakes. They are many times more powerful than the largest bombs that we have made. We are still running for the hills in an earthquake.

What we know today that the Indians may not have known, is that these earthquakes happen on a somewhat predictable cycle. Say... The Cascadia Subduction zone has an earthquake every 245-485 years, give or take a few years. Our biggest fear on the north coast is a pop in the subduction zone that could rip from Petrolia to Canada, loosening a 9 plus earthquake. Land could drop into the sea, or lift like it did most recently in 1981? in Petrolia. Kings Peak got 16 inches taller in that little quake, and seashore along Petrolia lifted over 4 feet. It was just a mouse of a quake compared to the lion quake that we are facing if the Cascadia releases it's pent-up pressure. The Cascadia did that the last time in 1700, exactly in the year 1700. Let's see... that was exactly 312 years ago. If I have my math right, that means the the Cascadia is overdue, and we are in the give or take area of earthquake predictability. Wow... exciting times, huh? The Copalis Ghost forest sunk into the sea during the 1700 quake, and the remains of the dead Red Cedar forest still stands in Washington.

In 1700 the Cascadia earthquake was powerful enough to send a tidal wave toward Japan that was still 16 feet tall when it hit the Japanese shore. It was recorded there and the wave confirms the date of the last Cascadia super-quake. The bad news is that the 1700 quake was not the first...

"Oregon State University (OSU) used core samples from the ocean floor along the fault to establish that there have been at least 41 Cascadia events in the last ten thousand years. Nineteen of those events ripped the fault from end to end, a “full margin rupture.”

You have no idea how powerful a "full margine rupture is"! Now, I did the math for you: 10,000 years divided by 41 equals 243.9 years.  So we are long overdue for a major earthquake on the north coast of California. So, now you are wondering. "what are the odds of one happening?"

With a time line of 41 events the science team at OSU has now calculated that the California–Oregon end of Cascadia’s fault has a 37 percent chance of producing a major earthquake in the next 50 years. The odds are 10 percent that an even larger quake will strike the upper end, in a full-margin rupture, within 50 years. Given that the last big quake was 312 years ago, one might argue that a very bad day on the Cascadia Subduction Zone is ominously overdue. It appears that three centuries of silence along the fault has been entirely misleading. The monster is only sleeping."

When I was a wee lad I had a superstitious old great-grandmother that kept us kids scared to death with her endless “end or the world” predictions. I remember that she talked a lot about the “A-Tom bomb” that Russia was going to drop on us. I was too young at the time to not believe that the Ruskies thought that Laytonville would be some kind of a strategic target. The training at school was if you saw a long lasting bright light in the sky, more than lightning, that you should run inside hide under a desk and put your head between you legs. The joke at the time was that you put your head between your legs so you could “kiss your ass goodbye”. One of the things that my G-grandmother told us kids is that God was going to send a great Pacific tidal wave, that would come clear over Cahto Mountain. My uncle told me that she had been predicting that wave for years. He said that he used to run up the mountain behind the ranch house and hold onto a manzanita bush that grew on the very top and watch for the wave to come over Cahto. I still wonder about that wave.

8 comments:

Ernie Branscomb said...

I'm afraid to shop in Eureka anymore...

Let me know how the drill goes

spyrock said...

it's interesting that your great grandmother talked about the tidal wave coming over cahto mountain. because there is a book called spiritwalker by hank wesselman 5000 years in the future about a hawaian who is searching for americans and horses after the fall of technology and a tidal wave that made the central valley of california a sea. that's why i have a girlfriend who lives at 2800 feet in the sierras.
The future California-Nevada region is depicted as including rainforest and an inland sea, as well as a wide variety of exotic megafauna such as elephants, lions, longhorn cattle, and several monkey and ape species. Wesselman speculates that the ancestors of these animals may have escaped from zoos during the collapse of Western civilization. Both human populations shown in the book live at a neolithic level of technology, with some metal artifacts such as fishhooks.
this book caught the interest of an hawaiian kahuna or medicine man called hale makua who decided to share his wisdom with hank and the western world for the first time that any hawaian medicine man would do that. hank wrote a book about it called the bowl of light meaning that we are all given a bowl of light when we come in but each time we do something bad to someone it gets darker and in some peoples bowls there is very little light left. so hale says, you just turn that bowl over and dump out all the dark stuff and start over. pretty simple. hale was descended from a warrior clan in hawaii and he was a marine in korea and the viet nam war. so this is somebody who has done a 360. his 4 rules are. love all that you see. live what you feel. we are all connected so no fear. and once you start sharing or being compasionate you are sovereign. and you are free. free to be you.
what is interesting about this, is that there is a mendocino connection. frank asbill married a waylaki princess and their son married a maui hawaiian princess who was descended from the king of maui. their descendent who lives today in maui writes some of the most hateful history of what happened in covelo in the old days in the ukiah newspaper online. frank asbill's second wife was mary frost of the frost clan in early mendocino county. in 1865 the frosts who were slavers and confederates had a feud with the coates who were abolishionists and union sympathizers and 6 men were killed over kids fighting at school. at the funeral the survivors of both familys were hugging each other. all of this happening in the shadow of cahto mountain and my ancestor never living past oct 10, 1872 may have been killed by some of these outlaws or it may have been indians. but in 1872 a new county sherrif was elected and he hires doc standley to be a deputy. and doc is in the history books chasing the mendocino outlaws hal brown etc all the way to summit valley where doc eats dinner with frank and pierce asbill and along with clarence white and buckshot track those outlaws 1100 miles to the sierras where clarence white kills one of them and after frankie white's, his sister's, divorce trial with george white: kills waylackie john and pleads self defense and all of round valley has a party celebrating that the naked white mankiller indian is finally dead. so i don't know what this means but it's certainly all connected. and i did just buy another surfboard.

spyrock said...

also, i should mention that andy bowman was with doc standley on that hunt for part of it being used as a tracker.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Spy
I seem to remember that Wylaki John tried to kill Clarenece White but either his gun snagged in his holster or he tripped on the stairs.

Maybe that, or it was Whites excuse to kill him. At any rate everybody thought that it was good ridence.

spyrock said...

i've got brad pitt playing wylacki john and george clooney playing george white and that bonham lady playing frankie white. anybody have any suggestions for the other peeps? oh yeah, buckshot would be johnny depp.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Another major earthquake just hit in southern Mexico 6.3

Ernie Branscomb said...

Another major earthquake just hit in southern Mexico 6.3

Anonymous said...

Your earthquake thing says 4.9..