The 1964 Alaska Earthquake was 9.2 in magnitude and caused dramatic destruction and dramatic examples of surface rupture, subsidence, and liquefaction. New paleoseismic evidence points to a previously unknown earthquake that happened on the same fault segment approximately 500 years ago. This new evidence would change the recurrence interval for the earthquakes on the Alaskan megathrust fault, which would affect seismic hazard in Alaska, but could also increase the tsunami hazard in places as far away as California and Hawaii. [Source: EARTH Magazine via AEG Insider. Image: Wikipedia]
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China Earthquake Coverage
The regular news media as well as the geo-blogosphere are all abuzz about Monday’s 7.9 magnitude earthquake in central China. Official death toll is at 12,000 right now and that’s in Sichuan Province alone. My guess is that number will swell substantially in the coming days. If you haven’t seen photos and video yet, they are absolutely gut-wrenching. My heart and prayers go out to the victims of this disaster. (Photo by Liu Hai, AP)
Several geo-bloggers have posts about the earthquake. Harold Asmis of Ontario-GeoFish describes the earthquake as a "big valley-thrust earthquake" or what he calls the "Fist of God". Dave’s Landslide Blog has started compiling reports of landslides related to the earthquake in this landslide prone region of China. And here is the USGS info on the earthquake.