This is what happened on January 26, 1700. The plate slipped, and a magnitude-9.0 earthquake resulted, devastating the coast of modern-day Oregon and Washington. According to one story, an entire First Nation on Vancouver Island, the Pachena Bay people, died in flooding overnight. And the quake triggered a tsunami that rode across the Pacific Ocean for 10 hours before slamming the east coast of Japan, where merchants and samurai recorded flooding and damage.
In terms of sheer numbers, previous reports estimated that Washington state would have a major quake every 500 year on average. Gold finger’s team now shows them to occur about every 430 years. And northern Oregon, which used to receive a quake about every 430 years, instead faces one every 350 years.
This means that there is about a 20 percent chance that northern Oregon—a region that includes Portland and Astoria—will be hit by a magnitude-8.0-or-higher quake in the next 50 years. (Previously, the area was estimated to have about a 12 percent chance of facing such a quake.) Washington state has between a 14 and 17 percent chance of facing a big one, up from an 8 to 14 percent chance.
In terms of sheer numbers, previous reports estimated that Washington state would have a major quake every 500 year on average. Gold finger’s team now shows them to occur about every 430 years. And northern Oregon, which used to receive a quake about every 430 years, instead faces one every 350 years.
This means that there is about a 20 percent chance that northern Oregon—a region that includes Portland and Astoria—will be hit by a magnitude-8.0-or-higher quake in the next 50 years. (Previously, the area was estimated to have about a 12 percent chance of facing such a quake.) Washington state has between a 14 and 17 percent chance of facing a big one, up from an 8 to 14 percent chance.
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