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The M7 Anchorage Earthquake: Testing the Resiliency of South-Central Alaska

Date: 4/26/2019

Time: 10:45 AM to 2:45 PM

Room: Cascade II

The M7 Anchorage Earthquake of November 30, 2018 struck under Alaska’s most densely populated urban area, and generated the strongest ground motions in south-central Alaska since the Great 1964 Alaska Earthquake. The Anchorage earthquake is the third Mw≥7 earthquake in the subducting Pacific Plate to impact south-central Alaska in the past three years. The rupture appears to have occurred inside the Pacific Plate and generally propagated upward and northward toward the plate interface. Strong ground motions across the Anchorage and Mat-Su Valley regions caused major impacts to the built environment and local economy, estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet, despite the shaking severity most buildings, critical facilities and lifelines performed remarkably well. Damage was generally minor to moderate though spread across a large geographic area. In this session, we invite contributions from all fields addressing an array of topics including, but not limited to, the earthquake source, propagation and ground motion observations, geodetic observations, geotechnical impacts to the built environment and ground failures placed in the context of the local geology. We also seek perspectives that address community preparedness, mitigation measures, resiliency to seismic hazards and lessons learned.

Conveners

Michael West, University of Alaska (mewest@alaska.edu)
Rob Witter, U.S. Geological Survey (rwitter@usgs.gov)

Oral Presentations