Underwater volcano active off Oregon coast

A volcano may be erupting off the Oregon coast, scientists say

Three hundred miles off the Pacific Northwest coast, the seafloor has been rumbling.

Over the past five months, there were hundreds of small earthquakes on most days at Axial Seamount.

Then on April 24, there was a spike: nearly 8,000 earthquakes. The seafloor level dropped more than two meters. Temperatures rose.

Scientists believe an underwater volcano is erupting.

An eruption is not a threat to coastal residents, researchers say, because the earthquakes are small, mostly magnitude 1 or 2, and the seafloor movements are relatively gradual, so they won't cause a tsunami.

The volcanic activity has no relationship to the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which scientists watch closely for signs of a much larger and more destructive earthquake.

To Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University geologist, the eruption at Axial Seamount was not a surprise.

He had predicted it would happen this year. He predicted the previous eruption, in 2011, too.

Chadwick hopes the lessons he and his collaborator, Scott Nooner at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, learn from Axial Seamount can eventually be applied to volcanoes on land.

Land volcanoes have thicker crusts and are influenced by large earthquakes and other nearby volcanoes, among other things, so predictions are more difficult, Chadwick said.

"Axial Seamount is a pure example, if you will," he said. "It has relatively simple plumbing."

Chadwick and other scientists watch the signals at Axial Seamount in real-time via a cable laid out on the seafloor. The cable is part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative funded by the National Science Foundation. [...]

I doubt that it has nothing to do with the Cascadia Subduction Zone, since it is practically right on top of it. I presume they mean to say, that the volcano isn't signaling an imminent earthquake. As far as they can tell.

Read the whole thing for embedded links, photos and more.

     

Tsunami Movie Special Effects

I posted previously about the movie The Impossible. The special effects were very good.

Here is a website showing how they did it. Lots of pics, and two video clips. It's fascinating.
     

The real-life family from "The Impossible"

It's their family's true story, that the movie "The Impossible" is based on:


All I could see was water and two of my boys clinging to the tops of trees

It seemed like the perfect Christmas break for the Spanish family of five.

But then the splashing and laughter were drowned out by a deafening roar and Maria watched in horror as a towering wave pushed in from the sea and ripped through the hotel.

The family’s Far Eastern holiday over Christmas 2004 had ended in disaster — caught up in the Boxing Day tsunami which killed around 240,000 people in 14 countries.

[...]

Recalling the moment the tsunami struck, Maria, a doctor, says: “The wave is big on the cinema screen but in real life it was so much more. It was everything.”

In an instant, she found herself separated from Lucas, husband Quique and younger sons Tomas, eight, and five-year-old Simon.

The wave smashed her against a plate glass window which exploded behind her and she was swept through the hotel.

She says: “I remember being pushed against walls. You could feel them trembling and breaking, feeling them as they gave way, one after another.

“Some of the walls did not collapse — that’s why people died. They were trapped.

“I was under the water for a long, long time. I was not in physical pain but the drowning sensation was like being in a spin-dryer.

“The doctors said I was underwater for more than three minutes because my lungs were absolutely full of water. I saw many lights under the water, tunnels with lights at the end, that people tell you they see when they are going to die.”

Like Lucas and Maria, Quique doesn’t know how long he was underwater.

He says: “I thought, ‘That’s it, I’m not going to make it.’ But I needed to try. I saw a light above me, so I tried to push myself up and get my head out of the water.”

He surfaced in the torrent, more than half a mile downstream from the hotel, and says: “The only thing I could see was water and the tops of the trees. I was alone.

“I thought there was no way my children had made it. I started to cry and then I thought, ‘Why are you crying when there is no one to comfort you?’”

Quique managed to grab hold of a tree and thinks he hung on for about half an hour as the raging waters roared past him.

He says: “Then I heard Tomas’s voice. He was shouting, ‘Papa! Mama! Lucas! Simon!’” [...]

Another good interview is here:


Seemingly impossible: Miracle survival of family who inspired new tsunami movie

[...] “We started to hear a very horrible sound. I was looking around thinking maybe this is just in my mind.

"No one recognised the sound. It felt like the Earth was coming apart but everything looked perfect.

“I was facing the sea and saw a huge black wall. I didn’t think it was the sea. I thought it was a black wall coming to get us.

“The two youngest boys were in the swimming pool with my husband.

"Lucas, the eldest, was just in front of me. He had just got out of the pool to fetch the ball we had bought them on Christmas Day.

"I screamed to my husband and to the kids. I thought it was the end for all of us. Lucas was crying out, ‘Mama, Mama’.

"Then they all disappeared under water. [...]

Based on the details in these interviews, it seems the movie re-enacted their experiences very closely. Follow the links for more details, and lots of photos.
   

Japanese Tsunami Debris on Oregon Coast

It's starting to arrive in greater quantities. A few Sunday's ago, I encountered my first piece. We were having a nice walk on a local beach:


It was another day in paradise. Just beautiful. Then I saw it:



A first I thought it was just an ordinary piece of rubbish. But then I saw the Japanese writing on it. It was a bottle of hairspray. It had floated in the ocean for a long time, so long that it had seaweed growing on it.

I could only wonder; had it been sitting on a shelf in a hair salon? Or on a ladies dressing table, or in someone's bathroom cabinet? Was it swept out to sea from someone's house - WITH the house? With people still in the house? All questions that can never be answered.



I left it there, bearing witness to a disaster far away, years ago. I continued my walk, and told myself I would pick it up on my way back down the beach. But on the way back, it was gone. Either someone else picked it up, or it went back to sea for a while, to remind someone else on another day.

Meanwhile, an article in the Vancouver Sun tells us that a Tsunami here would not be as bad as the earthquake that would cause it:

Monster earthquake would devastate Pacific Northwest, leaving thousands dead
But tsunami would be secondary issue for Lower Mainland, because Vancouver Island would take brunt of big wave: expert

A monster earthquake and tsunami would wreak havoc on B.C.’s west coast, but the effects would be far worse in Washington and Oregon states.

“I suspect there’d be a significant number of deaths in the Lower Mainland as a result of the shaking,” said Ronald Clowes, a crustal seismologist and professor emeritus at the University of B.C. “But the tsunami would be a secondary concern.”

Clowes spoke on Friday after researchers told Oregon legislators Thursday that more than 10,000 people could die when — not if — a monster earthquake and tsunami occur off the Pacific Northwest coast.

Coastal towns would be inundated; schools, buildings and bridges would collapse; and economic damage could hit $32 billion, the researchers said.

These findings were published in a chilling new report by the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission, a group of more than 150 volunteer experts.

[...]

According to the Oregon report, the 2011 Japan quake and tsunami were a wake-up call for the Pacific Northwest. Governments have been taking a closer look at whether the region is prepared for something similar, and discovering it is not.

Oregon legislators requested the study so they could better inform themselves about what needs to be done to prepare and recover from such a giant natural disaster.

The report says that geologically, Oregon and Japan are mirror images. Despite the devastation in Japan, that country was more prepared than Oregon because it had spent billions on technology to reduce the damage, the report said.

Meanwhile, a third minor earthquake has struck off the north B.C. coast, the latest in a series that has rattled the area since last fall. [...]

I don't deny that there is a seismic hazard here. But I don't know how they can say "Oregon and Japan are mirror images". Japan has a long history of active earthquakes, which is why they are better prepared. Earthquakes in Oregon are few and far between, which is why we are not better prepared. I don't see how that makes us a "mirror image". Though I suppose if a large earthquake and resulting tsunami happen, it won't much matter what we call it.
   

Southern End of Cascadia Fault More Unstable

And thus more likely to have a quake soon:

Northwest Earthquake Risk in U.S. Looms Large: 40% Chance of Major Earthquake Within 50 Years

ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2012) — A comprehensive analysis of the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Northwest coast confirms that the region has had numerous earthquakes over the past 10,000 years, and suggests that the southern Oregon coast may be most vulnerable based on recurrence frequency.

[...]

"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," said Chris Goldfinger, a professor in OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and lead author of the study. "That doesn't mean that an earthquake couldn't strike first along the northern half, from Newport, Ore., to Vancouver Island.

"But major earthquakes tend to strike more frequently along the southern end -- every 240 years or so -- and it has been longer than that since it last happened," Goldfinger added. "The probability for an earthquake on the southern part of the fault is more than double that of the northern end."

[...]

The Goldfinger-led study took four years to complete and is based on 13 years of research. At 184 pages, it is the most comprehensive overview ever written of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a region off the Northwest coast where the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is being subducted beneath the continent. Once thought to be a continuous fault line, Cascadia is now known to be at least partially segmented.

This segmentation is reflected in the region's earthquake history, Goldfinger noted.

"Over the past 10,000 years, there have been 19 earthquakes that extended along most of the margin, stretching from southern Vancouver Island to the Oregon-California border," Goldfinger noted. "These would typically be of a magnitude from about 8.7 to 9.2 -- really huge earthquakes.

"We've also determined that there have been 22 additional earthquakes that involved just the southern end of the fault," he added. "We are assuming that these are slightly smaller -- more like 8.0 -- but not necessarily. They were still very large earthquakes that if they happened today could have a devastating impact." [...]

This fits in with a previous post I did, "Oregon Tsunami Inundation Maps and Reports", which referenced the Gorda plate, a seismic zone that extends from Southern Oregon to Northern California. More plates, more faults, thus more activity.
     

Tsunami Debri? We Ain't Seen nothin' Yet!

But it looks like we're gonna. The map below shows where the debris has spread so far. But if you follow the link below to the interactive version of the map, it has a slider on the bottom, that you can move to see the projected path of debris for the coming years, up to the year 2030.


If it's only gone this far, and yet we are already seeing debris, what's it gonna be like when it REALLY gets here? I guess we'll find out!

West Coast prepares for Japanese tsunami debris

[...] Beach cleanliness is vital to residents in Oregon, the only state whose entire coastline (362 miles) is public. Thousands of people turn out twice a year for beach cleanup events. Others adopt portions of the coastline, cleaning and monitoring them year-round.

So it's no surprise that residents are worried about the tsunami debris that ocean currents could bring ashore, Johnson says.

On Wednesday, Oregon officials confirmed that the dock that washed ashore earlier in the week was from the tsunami. The dock — 7 feet long, 19 feet wide and 66 feet long — is the first official piece of tsunami debris to reach the state.

Japanese officials estimate that 5 million tons of debris washed into the Pacific after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). About 70% of that sank, leaving about 1.5 million tons floating.

Most of the debris still is north of Hawaii, says Nir Barnea, West Coast regional coordinator for NOAA's Marine Debris Program.

Scientists expect more debris to hit the West Coast in coming months and through 2014. [...]

Follow the link to see the interactive map.


Also see:

Japanese Illegal Aliens Exterminated in Oregon
     

Japanese Illegal Aliens Exterminated in Oregon

Oregon officials worry about creatures on tsunami dock

When the tsunami hit the northern coast of Japan last year, the waves ripped four dock floats the size of freight train boxcars from their pilings in the fishing port of Misawa and turned them over to the whims of wind and currents.

One floated up on a nearby island. Two have not been seen again. But one made an incredible journey across 5,000 miles of ocean that ended this week on a popular Oregon beach.

Along for the ride were hundreds of millions of individual organisms, including a tiny species of crab, a species of algae, and a little starfish all native to Japan that have scientists concerned if they get a chance to spread out on the West Coast.

"This is a very clear threat," said John Chapman, a research scientist at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, where the dock washed up early Tuesday. "… It's incredibly difficult to predict what will happen next."

A dozen volunteers scraped the dock clean of marine organisms and sterilized it with torches Thursday to prevent the spread of invasive species, said Chris Havel, spokesman for the state Department of Parks and Recreation, which is overseeing the dock's fate.

The volunteers removed a ton and a half of material from the dock, and buried it above the high-water line, Havel said.

Biologists have identified one species of seaweed, known as wakame, that is native to Japan and has established in Southern California but has not yet been seen in Oregon, he said.

[...]

The dock tested negative for radiation, which was to be expected if the dock broke loose before the nuclear power plant accident triggered by the waves, said Havel.

Chapman said the dock float was covered with masses of algae, kelp, barnacles, mussels and other organisms.

"This is a whole, intact, very diverse community that floated across from Japan to here," he said. "That doesn't happen with a log or a thrown-out tire. I've never seen anything like this."

Of particular concern was a small crab that has run wild on the East Coast, but not shown up yet on the West Coast, and a species of algae that has hit Southern California, but not Oregon. The starfish, measuring about three inches across, also appears to be new to U.S. shores.

"It's almost certainly true that most of the things on this have not been introduced to this coast yet," Chapman said. "We're going to see more of these things coming." [...]

Too bad the critters had to survive all that way, just to be exterminated when they got here. Oh well. I guess it was the lesser of two evils.

As for more to come, follow the link and look at the spread map. Yikes!
We ain't seen nothing yet. And the potential for more invasive species arriving looks like it will grow.
     

The Science of Tsunamis and Earthquakes

Japan earthquake, other tectonic surprises left science in a mess

What happened last March 11 wasn't supposed to be possible. The seismic hazard maps didn't entertain the idea of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the Tohoku coast of Japan. But the Earth paid no heed to scientific orthodoxy. A massive slab of the planet's crust lurched 180 feet to the east.

It rose about 15 feet, lifted the ocean and tipped the Pacific's waters onto the Japanese coast.

The quake and the resulting tsunami killed about 20,000 people, wiped out entire towns and triggered power outages and then meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

It also humbled the scientific community.

Since 2004, earthquake scientists have been caught off guard, or to some extent consternated, by huge killer earthquakes in the Indian Ocean, Haiti, China, Japan and New Zealand.

Now the geologists are in a state of soul-searching. They want to do better, get smarter and help save lives on a shaky planet. But they feel chastened by what happened in Japan and are reexamining their basic assumptions about earthquakes.

[...]

Seismic hazard maps typically show where earthquakes are most likely to occur over a certain period of time, and the expected maximum intensity. But critics say these maps merely describe what has happened before and have virtually no predictive value. They call it "Texas sharpshooting" - shooting the side of a barn and then drawing a bull's-eye around the bullet hole.

Defenders of the maps argue that they are better than nothing. Policymakers have to decide where to put resources. Which locations have older buildings that are most in need of seismic retrofitting? How high should a tsunami wall be?

Public officials may say, in effect, we know this map is probably wrong, but we still need it for planning purposes.

If there's one obvious change in attitude among geophysicists since Japan's 3/11 disaster, it's a recognition that huge earthquakes can potentially happen on any subduction zone - any of the places where one tectonic plate is diving beneath another.

As Thorne Lay, a seismologist at the University of California, noted in a commentary in the journal Nature: "We must allow for the possibility of larger quakes in regions where we thought that potential did not exist." [...]

Thus, Tsunami inundation and evacuation maps the state of Oregon have been putting out, are positing a worst-case scenario, in order to avoid under-estimating the potential for an event, as happened in Japan.

But I wanted to know more, to find out what science was used in creating these maps. So I attended one of the "Tsunami Roadshow" meetings, where the state geologists explain their findings and answer questions. Much of the information at their presentation can be found in this PDF file: The 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami: Lessons for the Oregon Coast.

More information for Oregon can be found at the link below:

Oregon Tsunami Clearinghouse/Resource Library


Also see:

On NW coast, potential for tsunami waves up to 100 feet now seems possible
     

The Japanese Coastal Town That Survived

The town with the highest wall and gate, survived the Tsunami intact:

How one Japanese village defied the tsunami

FUDAI, Japan – In the rubble of Japan's northeast coast, one small village stands as tall as ever after the tsunami. No homes were swept away. In fact, they barely got wet.

Fudai is the village that survived — thanks to a huge wall once deemed a mayor's expensive folly and now vindicated as the community's salvation.

The 3,000 residents living between mountains behind a cove owe their lives to a late leader who saw the devastation of an earlier tsunami and made it the priority of his four-decade tenure to defend his people from the next one.

His 51-foot (15.5-meter) floodgate between mountainsides took a dozen years to build and meant spending more than $30 million in today's dollars.




"It cost a lot of money. But without it, Fudai would have disappeared," said seaweed fisherman Satoshi Kaneko, 55, whose business has been ruined but who is happy to have his family and home intact.

The floodgate project was criticized as wasteful in the 1970s. But the gate and an equally high seawall behind the community's adjacent fishing port protected Fudai from the waves that obliterated so many other towns on March 11. Two months after the disaster, more than 25,000 are missing or dead.

"However you look at it, the effectiveness of the floodgate and seawall was truly impressive," Fudai Mayor Hiroshi Fukawatari said.

Towns to the north and south also braced against tsunamis with concrete seawalls, breakwaters and other protective structures. But none were as tall as Fudai's. [...]

The port's boats and warehouses were destroyed, but the community was protected.




Read the whole thing. The man who had the floodgate built died in 1997, but the article ends with words from a speech he made when he retired. They turned out to be somewhat prophetic.

     

The Oregon Tsunami BUZZ is getting louder

It was buzzing before, but with recent events, the talk about tsunami preparation is getting even more attention now:

Japan quake brings a warning to Oregon

Senate President Peter Courtney likes to emphasize the dramatic. But he's not over-exaggerating when he talks about Oregon's potential for killer earthquakes and tsunamis.

The science is what scares him: The region's last great earthquake occurred Jan. 26, 1700. Geology shows that a cataclysmic quake occurs here every 241 years, on average. Basic math shows we're overdue for The Big One, a quake that will rival or exceed Japan's devastating 9.0 earthquake.

Bear in mind that thousands of people have died, and more are missing, even though Japan's earthquake preparations are far greater than Oregon's.

"We can build buildings and highways that will withstand this, but I don't know how much time we'll have," Courtney told the Statesman Journal Editorial Board last week. "It's very hard to get people to understand that this thing is going to be of a magnitude that is unimaginable." [...]

Of course, much of the rest of the article is all about how we don't have the money to build new earthquake/tsunami resistant bridges and structures, and how we have to go ahead and do it anyway.

If they hadn't already spent decades wasting our tax money on CRAP, spending way over budget, and raising taxes to the point that they've driven many revenue payers out of the state, we would have the money, or at least the ability to finance it.

They're concerned about a physical tsunami. Too bad they aren't equally concerned about the fiscal tsunami that our over-extended state government has helped to create. But that's another story. On with this one:

Oregon coast escaped loss of life in tsunami, but next time it could be different

[...] In wake of the tsunami, which caused millions of dollars in damage in Brookings Harbor, two main themes emerged in debriefings this week: the need for more education of the population and better communication with the public.

Emergency managers, coastal authorities and officials with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries have spent a decade educating the public about tsunamis. DOGAMI has drawn initial inundation maps, outlining the danger zones, and many evacuation routes are in place. Most coastal counties have reverse 9-1-1 systems and sirens dot the coast.

Periodically, emergency officials hold conference room drills, running through tsunami procedures. All that snapped into play on Friday morning, as command posts were set up, calls went out and officials knocked on doors and scoured campsites as emergency managers fielded an calls from officials, the media and residents.

But in the wealth of information, with advisories, watches and warnings flowing from tsunami experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Alaska, one simple message got lost: Tsunami waves arrive and then surge again and again and again over perhaps 24 hours.



"You don't get just one wave," said Ian Madin, chief scientist at DOGAMI. "You get a series of waves. It's like dropping a pebble into glass of water. With a tsunami, the second or third wave could be the largest."

[...]

Tsunamis are so infrequent in Oregon that people forget about the dangers -- and in this instance the state had hours to prepare.

When a powerful earthquake hits off the coastline along the Cascadia fault, people will have 20 minutes to flee.

"If you are knocked to the ground and it lasts two to three minutes, don't wait for somebody to tell you it's the big one, McCraw said. "You need to get to 50 feet elevation."

DOGAMI has a full-time staffer working on outreach along with county emergency managers, but Oregon's education effort is focused on the coast.

That misses the rest of the population who flock to the beach throughout the year, especially in summer.

"We are a nice tourist spot," McCraw said. "What would have happened if this had been the middle of July when we would have doubled our population in the county and had school kids on the beach?"

Burns said the state needs to push hotel, motel and rental owners to tack up warning signs that include show evacuation routes.

DOGAMI has drawn about 40 evacuation maps but most are based on pre-2006 data and some rely on information from 1995. Only Cannon Beach and the area from Bandon to Brookings have up-to-date maps. The department plans to finish its mapping of the coast by 2013 when a four-year $2.8 million grant from NOAA ends. At the same time, the public needs to prepare, officials say. [...]

On one of our ham radio nets, I heard someone speculate that we've seen earthquakes moving clockwise around the Pacific rim: Chile, New Zealand, Japan. "Maybe we're next" they said. Well if it's really traveling clockwise, I would guess Alaska might be next. But who knows?

I don't doubt the possibility of a tsunami threat; but it's impossible to predict. I also have to wonder which one is most imminent; the physical or the fiscal one? And many of the preparations of the former are also applicable in dealing with the aftermath of the latter. I suppose that's convenient.

Either way, I guess the Boy Scout motto applies.


Also see:

Oregon Coast must prepare for repeat of the Great Cascadia Earthquake of 1700 (links)


     

California and Pacific North West Tsunami Risk

With all the talk about the possibility of underwater quakes just offshore of the USA's west coast causing tsunamis, I've wondered what the size of such waves might be. This article offers some estimates:

California tsunami could come with no warning

[...] Southern California could see a significant tsunami caused either by a large earthquake off Alaska or by undersea landslides spurred by smaller earthquakes off California. Northern California is at greater risk because of the Cascadia subduction zone, which runs along the Pacific Northwest coast.

Quakes off Alaska and the Pacific Northwest could create 15-foot waves in Southern California and 25-foot tsunamis in the northern part of the state, said California State Geologist John Parrish.

Tsunami inundation map of Long Beach. Click through for a larger version.And tsunamis caused by underwater landslides off Southern California could reach as high as 40 feet, although they would be localized and quick to dissipate, said Costas Synolakis, director of the Tsunami Research Center at USC.

That type of event is only expected to strike once in 2,000 or 3,000 years. But, as has happened in Japan, experts say all predictions may go out the window.

“Mother Nature is notorious for not obeying rules that we make,” Parrish said.

[...]

A quake off Alaska would give California six to nine hours lead time to clear the beaches before a tsunami struck, Parrish said. A temblor off the California-Oregon border, on the other hand, might give Northern California towns less than half an hour to prepare.

“That’s not very much time," he said, "especially if it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you’re trying to wake up a whole town of people and get them up the hill.” [...]

I can only wonder how accurate the estimates are. No one will really know until it happens.
     

Fukushima reactor crisis: What they're doing about it, and who is actually doing it

Japan labors to cool reactors: Workers, power source added

Authorities battling the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant have doubled the number of workers on the site to 100 in an effort to continue cooling the three reactors and the spent fuel pools but have abandoned — at least temporarily — plans to use helicopters to dump water on the pools because of the radiation danger. Police may now use water cannons to spray the pools.

Workmen are also nearly finished stringing a new power line from the electrical grid to the power plant, which could ease the situation somewhat by providing a stable source of power for valves and controls at the plant and for pumps supplying water to the spent fuel pools.

It is too late for the electricity to do much good for the three endangered reactors, however, because their cooling systems all appear to have been damaged by the hydrogen explosions that have wracked the plants. Only external pumps can now be used for those reactors.

[...]

Officials are particularly concerned about reactor No. 3 because it is the only reactor at the facility that is fueled with what is known as a mixed oxide fuel. The pellets in mixed oxide fuel contain both plutonium and uranium. Plutonium is highly carcinogenic in small quantities, and its release into the environment would be very dangerous.

[...]

As the crisis at the power plant entered its sixth night, the situation appeared to be deteriorating. One sign was that the Japanese government increased the maximum radiation dose that workers could be exposed to from 100 millisieverts to 250 millisieverts, describing the move as "unavoidable due to the circumstances."

[...]

The good news is that the reactors should be undergoing a certain amount of cooling on their own. When an operating reactor is shut down, it continues to produce a large amount of heat, known as decay heat. Within the first week after a shutdown, that decay heat declines by about 50%, experts said, so that the reactors require less external cooling.

But can they keep it cool enough? If only they had the backup systems days ago, before the hydrogen explosions had damaged the cooling systems.

And who are the people doing this dangerous work?

Praise for 'heroes' working to avert Japan's nuclear catastrophe

(CNN) -- As the rest of the world waits with bated breath to see if Japan can avert a nuclear catastrophe, a small band of experts is putting their lives at risk to prevent the disaster.

Thousands of people living near the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been evacuated from their homes because of the risk of radiation leaks from reactors damaged by last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

But while most hurry in the opposite direction, about 180 plant workers are staying put -- despite the fact that doing so could result in serious illness or even death -- to battle the meltdown threat.

"The workers at this site are involved in a heroic endeavor," former U.S. Department of Energy Official Robert Alvarez told CNN.

"There is at least fragmentary evidence that in some places on this site there are life-threatening doses of radiation. I think they are doing enormously heroic work"

The workers left at the site are said to be highly trained and experienced nuclear operators, engineers and safety staff with highly specialized knowledge.

Professor Richard Wakeford, of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, said for many of them -- despite the highly unusual and potentially dangerous circumstances -- it will be just another day at the office.

"They see it as doing their job," he said. "The Japanese in particular are dedicated to duty, and they will see it as their duty to do what they are doing." [...]

Read the whole thing to see what these workers are facing. It's not as bad as the situation at Chernobyl was, but it's still fraught with many risks. Not just radiation, but hydrogen explosions as well.

I see they are now beginning to . They are working under very trying circumstances. Lets say our prayers that they can get through it, and that the situation can be brought under control.
     

Dog story from Japan: Towa and Melody

Amidst much bad news, some small bit of good news:

Two Dogs Defy the Wave

ARAHAMA, Miyagi Prefecture—When the tsunami warnings sounded after the massive earthquake that struck Japan on Friday, Masaki Kikuchi sprinted upstairs to grab his sleeping 12-year-old daughter before racing away to escape the rushing waters.

In the backyard tied to a small shed, Mr. Kikuchi left behind two dogs: Towa, a two-year-old Sheltie and Melody, a one-year-old Golden Retriever. Mr. Kikuchi assumed the giant tsunami that flattened his neighbors' homes and whisked away their cars probably killed Towa and Melody too.

Koya Kikuchi, the 20-year-old daughter of Mr. Kikuchi, was riding the bus home from her job at a local restaurant. When the earthquake struck, a power line fell in front of the bus and passengers started filing out.

She rushed to her cousin's house, which was nearby. She asked her cousin to drive her back home because she wanted to go save the dogs that she had begged her father to get. Within a half-mile of her home, police stopped the car. They told Ms. Kikuchi that a tsunami was coming and she could not go any farther.

"I told my cousin that I was going to walk. She told me that I would die if I went," said Ms. Kikuchi. "I was crushed. I thought they were dead." [...]

But they weren't. Read the whole thing. Link has video too.
     

Japan: Before and After Satellite Photos

The tsunami's destruction: Before and after

If you follow the link, the site offers a series of photos with a scroll bar beneath, and the before picture is covered over with the after picture. The sheer enormity of the destruction boggles the mind.

Anxiety in Japan grows as death toll steadily climbs

Sendai, Japan (CNN) -- In a nation already besieged with grief over mounting casualties, fears of possible radiation and the threat of more earthquakes, thousands of bodies reportedly surfaced Monday, and a government official confirmed another explosion at a nuclear reactor building.

The official death toll reached 1,647 on Monday. But the numbers did not take into account the 2,000 bodies that Japan's Kyodo News said had been found in the hard-hit Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's northeast coast.

If confirmed, the discovery would be the largest yet of victims from the epic quake and devastating tsunami that hit Japan four days ago. [...]

     

Oregon Tsunami Inundation Maps and Reports

They have had these maps for a while now, but they have been updating them based on new data. Here is one of the main sites for information:

Oregon Tsunami Clearinghouse
This site has all kinds of information. One of the links is to inundation maps:

The Tsunami Map Viewer returns a map of areas with Tsunami Evacuation Zones based on information that you enter.

The part where you enter an address, does not work for me. Below that is a search box labeled "Search By a Coastal Area". It has a drop down menu. Pick an area from the menu, and it will show you a map, with flood areas highlighted in yellow.

There are also options in the upper right corner of the map to show a satellite view or a hybrid map/satellite view. On the left is a nav-bar, you can move the map around and zoom in quite close to see photographic detail. A note in the sidebar explains:

Important Map Notes

The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), in partnership with NOAA, is developing new tsunami evacuation maps and revising current maps for the entire Oregon coast.

The anticipated date of completion of this project is 2013. The interactive map on this website depicts first generation evacuation maps developed between 1995 and 2006 that show evacuation zones in yellow based on the maximum inundation expected for a local Cascadia tsunami.

This maps on this website incorporate new information and technology gained since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that have aided the development of a second generation of evacuation maps. The new maps depict the maximum extent of inundation expected for both distant tsunamis (orange) and a local Cascadia tsunamis (yellow).

Since the Japan earthquake, there have been people in the media claiming that a Cascadia quake would be very similar to the one in Japan. I believe the inundation maps are based on a 9 point richter scale quake on the Cascadia fault zone.

The map below I shows the Cascadia fault zone (It's not an inundation map; I found it on another website. Here, the yellow just marks the fault zone):



There hasn't been a large subduction zone quake in Oregon since 1700, or so geologists tell us. They also say that at that time a 10 foot wall of mud and water washed inland over low lying areas. They base their guess on fossilized remains of Indian settlements that were buried under a layer of mud in that time period (sorry, I didn't save the link). How accurate their estimate is, I couldn't say. A 10ft wave, while serious, isn't the 33 ft waves Japan had just had.

In general, there are not many quakes in Oregon. I've lived here since 2004 and have not even felt one. But they do happen occasionally. Mostly they are small, with a few exceptions.

Because Oregon is not as seismically active as Japan, I don't know how apt the comparison is. But does the lack of earthquakes here make us complacent? Perhaps.

So just how serious is the potential threat?

Earthquakes in Oregon State

[...] There are numerous fault zones in Oregon. A graphical representation is available from the University of Oregon. The information below about earthquake hazards in Oregon is exerpted from an FAQ by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

Q: Is there an earthquake hazard in Oregon?

A: YES! There have been no “big” earthquakes in Oregon’s brief history, and there is no question that damaging earthquakes have been far less frequent in Oregon than in California or Washington. However, geologic research tells scientists that Oregon will some day experience big earthquakes, and the Scotts Mills earthquake of March 25, 1993, and the Klamath Falls earthquake of September 20, 1993, confirm the research. Because we are poorly prepared, the damage could be great. We are faced with a small chance of a great disaster.

Q: What about “The Big One”?

A: Geologic research in the last few years has shown that Oregon and Washington have probably been shaken by numerous subduction zone earthquakes during the last several thousand years. Subduction zone earthquakes occur when two great crustal plates slide past each other beneath the coast of Oregon and Washington. These earthquakes occur, on average, every 300-600 years, and the most recent was about 300 years ago. The subduction zone earthquakes were probably centered just off the coast of Oregon and Washington and may have been as large as magnitude 8 to magnitude 9. Such earthquakes would cause significant shaking and damage in much of western Oregon. Scientists cannot predict whether the next such event might occur in two years or 200 years.

Q: What parts of western Oregon are most dangerous?

A: Local earthquakes are most common in the Portland metropolitan area, northern Willamette Valley, and Klamath Falls area and may threaten the coast from Coos Bay south to Brookings. We simply do not know about the risk of local earthquakes in most other parts of Western Oregon. All of Oregon west of the Cascades is at risk from subduction-zone earthquakes. The amount of earthquake damage at any place will depend on its distance from the epicenter, local soil conditions, and types of construction.

Q: What about faults?

Two of the largest earthquakes in Oregon occurred in 1910 and 1993. The 1910 earthquake was the largest historical shock within the state’s boundaries at a magnitude of 6.8, but it occurred too far offshore to cause damage, whereas the damaging 1993 earthquake was the largest historical earthquake beneath the land area of Oregon, with a magnitude of 5.9. [...]

There are so many variables. And a great deal of uncertainty. Perhaps the best we can do is to be prepared for the worst, and hope for the best. At any rate, preparation can help minimize the damage and enhance the recovery, whatever the size and scope of an event, whenever it may happen.
     

Some West Coast Marina's get slammed hard

Oregon Coast tsunami: Brookings, Crescent City, Depoe Bay report serious damage (photos, video)

[...] The Port of Brookings Harbor sustained heavy damage Friday as walls of water flushed through the port area. Port manager Ted Fitzgerald estimated the damage to docks, pilings and port facilities at $10 million. That doesn't include the damage caused to and by boats, at least three of which sank in the basin. Many others were swept out to sea. Many of the boats that remained in the basin have suffered extensive damage when the waters send the 220-ton fishing vessel Haida careening through the marina. The boat's owner was unable to steer it because it was without its engine at the time.

The rising waters created "a rat's nest" of pilings, boats, snapped masts and slabs of dock, Fitzgerald said.

"It was absolutely unstoppable. It happened at least three times, really hard," he said. "We had to keep taking it."

Chris Cantwell, the port's operations supervisor said 70 percent of the port's commercial basin was destroyed. "A third of our sports basin destroyed. We have boats on top of another. Probably half-a-dozen sunk," he told The Oregonian.

Cantwell said the first wall of water came in about 8:05 a.m. Friday. Three waves in all came in before 10 a.m. The third one inflicted the most damage. Cantwell said each of the waves was about 3 feet high.

"By the time the third one came in, things were loosened up," he added. "It was flipping boats on top of one another. We pretty much have a major disaster here."


Brookings City Manager Gary Milliman said about 60 to 85 percent of the commercial dock is destroyed. Seven boats were swept out to sea, while several others sank or sustained severe damage, he said. The body of a man was also discovered on one of the boats, but the Curry County sheriff had told Milliman it is unclear whether the death resulted from the tsunami.

The port was without power as evening fell, with scores of local residents gathered to survey the wreckage.

[...]

Near Coos Bay, surges of water rushed in and out of the port, simulating a high tide and low tide cycle every 15 minutes, said Coast Guard Boatswain's Mate First Class Walter Morey.

"It did that like 12 times in three hours," he said. "It's pretty impressive to see this happen right in front of your eyes."

The water traveled at a fast clip as well, about three times the typical speed, he said.

Pilings separated from the docks, forcing a few boats to break loose of their mooring lines, he said. One dock broke completely away from the pier, with a sailboat attached to it. Coast Guard crews who assisted had to cut the mooring lines before the dock dragged the boat under the water. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links, more reports from other locations, more photos and a video.

There are also more links here:

Posts with tag “oregon coast tsunami”

As awful as it is, it's nothing compared to what Japan is going through. A very sobering thought.
     

Chilean Earthquake, tidal wave warnings

Huge quake hits Chile; tsunami threatens Pacific

TALCA, Chile – One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Chile on Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and plunging trucks into the fractured earth. A tsunami set off by the magnitude-8.8 quake threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.

Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant.

It was the strongest earthquake to hit Chile in 50 years. President-elect Sebastian Pinera said more than 120 people died, a number that was rising quickly.

The quake shook buildings in Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires, and was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east.

In Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, furniture toppled as the earth shook for more than a minute in something akin to major airplane turbulence. The historic center of town largely collapsed, but most of the buildings of adobe mud and straw were businesses that were not inhabited during the 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT) quake.

Neighbors pulled at least five people from the rubble while emergency workers, themselves disoriented, asked for information from reporters.

Collapsed roads and bridges complicated north-south travel in the narrow Andean nation. Electricity, water and phone lines were cut to many areas — meaning there was no word of death or damage from many outlying areas.

In the Chilean capital of Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) northeast of the epicenter, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.

The jolt set off a tsunami that raced across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga. Tahitian officials banned all traffic on roads less than 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the sea and people in several low-lying island nations were urged to find higher ground.

Hawaii could face its largest waves since 1964 starting at 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. EST, 2119 GMT), according to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Officials evacuated people and boats near the water and closed shore-side Hilo International Airport. [...]

The article goes on to say that on May 22nd, 1960, a magnitude 9.5 quake in the same area killed 1,655 people, and left two million people homeless. It also produced deadly tsunami waves.

Waves are supposed to reach us here at 14:02 PST. I doubt they will be very dangerous, because of the angle it's coming from. But places like Hawaii, that are in the direct path of the released forces, have real cause for concern.

The death toll is expected to rise. No doubt the architecture in Chile is better now than it was in 1960, but I suspect there is a lot more people living there now, too. We shall see as the situation unfolds.

The photo of the apartment building on it's side is quite unnerving. As are many of the photos coming from Chile now.