Magnitude 9.2: The 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake

Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Project is a political lightning rod, but this amazing simulation video released by WSDOT underscores what COULD happen if a significant earthquake struck the Seattle Downtown Waterfront area.

With the events in Japan on everyone’s mind, it’s of course to be expected that seismic safety at nuclear power plants in the U.S. becomes a hot topic. This article discusses how the Nuclear Regulatory […]

From the USGS Newsroom:

USGS scientist Ken Hudnut fills us in on how science created the theoretical magnitude 7.8 earthquake behind the Great Southern California ShakeOut—the largest earthquake preparedness drill in U.S. history, coming Nov. 13—and what such an earthquake would do to downtown Los Angeles.

Seems like they did it right wiith this study. They had multiple teams independenlty come up with the ground shaking model, then had different structural engineers who are experts in seismic design of large buildings review the tall buildings in the L.A. area for the design earthquake. They say that buildings would likely come down in the 7.8 magnitude event. Click through to watch the video interview from the USGS.

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