A Database and Working Group for Cascadia Earthquake Research: Synthesizing Existing Knowledge to Answer Outstanding Questions

Date: 4/24/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Grand Ballroom

Understanding and forecasting the magnitude and risk of hazards associated with subduction zone earthquakes presents a compelling but complicated scientific problem because subduction zones straddle a multitude of physical systems. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is an example of a convergent plate boundary where large uncertainties remain about seismogenesis and great earthquakes (magnitude >8.0). Reducing these uncertainties requires addressing three fundamental questions: (1) To what extent does the earthquake-cycle model apply to Cascadia, and to great earthquake recurrence more broadly? (2) How do megathrust earthquakes rupture and radiate, and how does slip propagate? (3) How does the record of secondary coseismic geologic effects inform Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake timing, magnitude, and hazards? To address these questions, we have enlisted a diverse range of researchers with expertise in tectonics, geophysics, crustal structures, landslides, sedimentology, paleoseismology, land-level changes, geodesy, mantle and crustal rheology, and earthquake rupture dynamics into a USGS Powell Center Working Group. The group will address the aforementioned questions during a series of three week-long meetings in 2019-2020. Our Working Group activities also include engaging with disaster management and risk communication experts to ensure that our focus remains on risk reduction, and so that our results most effectively meet community and stakeholder needs. As a part of this Powell Center project, we are also working to compile and integrate available geological and geophysical data in the Cascadia region into a publicly available geodatabase, which will include objective assessment of dataset uncertainties. Here, we introduce this database and highlight results of the first Powell Center meeting (March 2019) focused on the Cascadia earthquake cycle.

Presenting Author: Lydia Staisch

Authors