An article from Kathryn Schulz of the New Yorker raises awareness of the potential for the US Pacific Northwest coast to experience a major subduction earthquake and tsunami not dissimilar to the 3.11 event in Japan.  The article, which was published last week, not only describes the potential similarities to 3.11, but the ways in which communities in the Northwest are in many ways much less prepared than those in Japan.

It also describes the collaborative detective work of how scientists came to understand the potential for an event:  Native American oral tradition, offshore core samples from the US, and historical records of a 300+ year old ‘Orphan Tsunami’ in Japan — before which no quake was felt — were pieced together to form evidence to the story we have today.

The full article can be found at the below link:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one