High chance of major Oregon quake: study

Ever since I took Geology 101 back at Ohio State in 1959, I have been fascinated by volcanoes and earthquakes and watch the goings on around the world on YAHOO.  This article caught my attention, since any major shift of the earth's crust, such as that in Japan, is bound to have some effect on the rest of the sphere.

 Wish the best for all in the Northwest if such a disaster does occur.

 Excerpt:  The western US state of Oregon has a 40 percent chance in the next half-century of suffering a massive earthquake on the scale of Japan's 2011 disaster, a study said Wednesday. 

The Pacific Northwest -- from the Oregon-California border to Vancouver Island in Canada -- has endured 19 huge earthquakes of around 8.7-9.2 magnitude over the past 10,000 years, Oregon State University researchers said.

An additional 22 major earthquakes have impacted only the southern part of the so-called Cascadia fault that runs from the Oregon areas of Coos Bay to Newport, the study said. "The southern margin of Cascadia has a much higher recurrence level for major earthquakes than the northern end and, frankly, it is overdue for a rupture," the study's lead author Chris Goldfinger said in a statement.

The study, published online by the US Geological Survey, estimated a 40 percent chance of a major earthquake around Coos Bay, Oregon, over the next 50 years. It said that the earthquake could be on the scale of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck in the Pacific Ocean near Japan on March 11, 2011. Some 19,000 people died as the tremor set off a devastating tsunami.

But Oregon has far fewer preparations in place than Japan, which is one of the world's most earthquake-prone nations.

Read full YAHOO News report here.

Swarm of Quakes in Nevada have Experts Concerned

I've been interested in earthquakes ever since my Geology 101 course at OSU in the sixties. Thought I'd pass this one along.

Excerpt: Nevada Seismologists are keeping a close eye on an area southwest of Hawthorne, Nevada where hundreds of earthquakes have been detected since Sunday.
" It's a little bit concerning in a sense.. The largest earthquakes in these sequences are pretty large in size." Graham Kent is Director of Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada Reno. He says there have been hundreds of earthquakes southwest of Hawthorne over the past few days. The largest-- recorded at a 4.4 in size.

"These are the biggest in a sequence we've seen at least in the last couple of years." Kent says unlike the 2008 quakes in Somersett that damaged so many homes, these earthquakes are fortunately not underneath a community.

Size is not the only reason Kent says they are watching the swarm of quakes closely. The location of these quakes is on top of a fault that has until now remained unknown or has not been active. Kent then made an eerie comparison, "Whats really interesting about most of these earthquakes we've experienced. Short of the Chilean and Japanese; Haiti, Baha, even Christchurch.. Were on unknown faults.

Read full MY4 News article here.

COMMENT from article site: I'm speculating about two possible causes:

1-Natural gas drilling, specifically the process known as "fracking." In AK this process had to be suspended by two companies who were drilling because suddenly they were experiencing hundreds of quakes where there they had been rare before.

2--A sign of the times. Jesus said that in the last days there would be earthquakes (along with a host of other ominous things). David Wilkerson said in his book "The Vision," written over 30 years ago, that the US would experience a terrible quake AFTER one in Japan. It would be in an area not known for faults or a quake zone.

If either of these are true, consider taking the claims of Jesus seriously. I'm just sayin