8 Winter 2012 Applegater
TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS
Doomsday 2012
BY RAUNO PERTTU
According to some, this year, 2012, is
the year the world ends—in December, to
be more precise. Of course, we’ve always
been in somebody’s end-of-the-world days.
Would-be oracles often use recent natural
disasters to “prove” these are the real end
times. I’ll be very impressed if, after 4.6
billion years of spinning, the earth actually
decides to end it all this December. I’ll bet
on another billion years.
It being the start of earth’s “final” year,
I thought it would be appropriate to join
the oracles and make some predictions on
events that will make our coming news
during the year. I hereby predict we will
have a volcanic eruption. I also predict
we will have a devastating earthquake.
In fact, I predict we will have multiple
earthquakes, eruptions, and freakish
weather events during the coming year. I
will make the same prediction every year.
The physical world is an active place, but
because geological time pokes along much
more slowly than our version of time, we
forget until the earth decides to remind us.
After we watch the disaster unfold on our
television or computer screen, we quickly
forget about it until the next disaster—
unless we’re directly impacted.
Our last impressive reminder of an
active earth was the massive earthquake and
tsunami on March 11, 2011 in northern
Japan. The earthquake and numerous
aftershocks happened on a complex fault
zone, called a subduction zone, along which
the Pacific plate is sliding under Japan. This
earthquake did not happen along the part
of the zone that has worried scientists for
years. The fault segment to the south, near
Tokyo, last had a devastating earthquake
and tsunami in 1923, and could have
another one at any time. This is the disaster
that has worried scientists. Because of its
proximity to a much larger population
center, this quake and tsunami could be
significantly more damaging than the one
last March.
Ver y large ear thquakes along
subduction zones happen somewhere in
the world every few years, and are the kind
of earthquakes almost always associated
with tsunamis. The great Alaska earthquake
of 1964 was such a quake, as was the
December 2004 earthquake in the Indian
Ocean, which triggered tsunamis that
drowned more than 230,000 people. The
great earthquake in Chile in February 2010
was the most recent such earthquake before
the Japanese earthquake last year. Parts of
the west coast of North America are also
subject to these earthquakes, although
we in the Applegate are very unlikely to
be directly impacted. It appears that the
risk of a subduction zone earthquake off
the northwest coast is mostly limited to
a stretch from the central Oregon coast
northward to Vancouver Island. Even in
that region, it further appears that, because
of the unusually warm and thin crustal
rocks involved, most of the shaking would
be limited to offshore.
Earthquakes on land impact us far
more frequently. These non-subduction
earthquakes can also be devastating, as
demonstrated by the May 2008 earthquake
in China, which killed 68,000 people and
earthquakes occur along the segment about
every 90 years, and the last large earthquake
was in 1857. Fortunately, this segment is
far enough from the Los Angeles population
centers that the famed “big one” could
disappoint true disaster fans. The problem
with predicting these large earthquakes is
that the average time between earthquakes
is only an average, and earthquakes don’t
run on a reliable timetable.
In and beyond California, numerous
active faults, many of them poorly studied
or understood, are waiting to surprise us.
One that caught my attention years ago,
when I was transferred to Salt Lake City,
is the Wasatch Fault. This fault is lifting
I
I
also predict we will have a
devastating earthquake.
left as many as ten-million homeless. There
are places, some of them here in the west,
that will have major damaging earthquakes
in the coming years—maybe even this year.
The only question is when they will occur.
Earthquake records have been kept
for centuries in parts of the world with
long-term written histories. In Turkey,
these records show repeating patterns of
earthquakes along certain fault lines. The
patterns suggest that Istanbul has a major
earthquake scheduled for its vicinity in
the next several years, with potentially
devastating consequences for this city of
more than 13-million people. Although
we lack the long-term written history,
trenching and scientific detective work have
demonstrated that faults in our American
West have similar repeating patterns.
I’ll use as examples two faults in
California that will have damaging
earthquakes, possibly within my lifetime
as an old geezer, and most probably in your
lifetime, if you’re young. One of these, the
Hayward Fault that passes southward along
the eastern margin of the San Francisco
Bay Area, has had at least five large
earthquakes with approximate intervals of
140 years. The last one was in 1868 (yes,
144 years ago). Because the fault bisects the
University of California, Berkeley football
stadium, the stadium’s ongoing major
renovation is designed to protect the players
and fans if the next “big one” hits at game
time. Perhaps the yardage markers can be
used to measure the displacement.
A large earthquake is also scheduled
for the segment of the famed San Andreas
Fault about 100 miles north of Los
Angeles. Studies have shown that very large
n fact, I predict we will have
multiple earthquakes, eruptions,
and freakish weather events…
the mountains east of Salt Lake Valley,
while dropping the valley. Portions of
this fault have ruptured and produced
large earthquakes approximately every
350 years. One of the segments that is
due for a large earthquake runs along the
eastern boundary of urban Salt Lake City.
Our brick house, which would be very
vulnerable to earthquakes, was almost on
the fault. Projections of the damage from
shaking of the soft sediments that underlie
the town were enough to make me think
about the family trapped in rubble on a
cold winter’s night. The Wasatch Fault is
a very dangerous fault that was recognized
by scientists, but was largely ignored by the
public until recently. Similar time-bomb
faults are scattered across the west, and
along geological zones in the seemingly
stable continental interior to the east.
Many are unstudied by scientists, and
will be recognized and appreciated only
when they act up. Very large earthquakes
occurred historically along some of the
zones in the continental interior, but at a
time when the population was isolated and
few accurate records were kept. Future large
earthquakes will continue to happen along
these less-recognized zones but, because of
lack of knowledge, they are likely to surprise
us, and to be very damaging.
Enough about earthquakes. Volcanoes
also work on repeating patterns. Each of
the Cascades volcanoes has its own pattern
of eruptions with some, like Mount St.
Helens and Mount Shasta, erupting
frequently. Others, like Mount Hood,
erupt less frequently, and still others,
like Mount Adams, rarely erupt. Most
volcanoes are also
irregular in their
eruption patterns,
with periods
Rauno Perttu
of frequent
eruptions followed by long periods of sleep
and, like we humans, volcanoes change
with time, grow old and die. We older
humans had the chance to see Mount St.
Helens, a vigorous younger volcano, put
on a show, but are unlikely to see another.
The young, however, have a very good
chance of seeing another Cascades eruption
in their lifetime. Our own nearby Mount
McLoughlin appears to offer little threat. It
has apparently been quiet for 25,000 years,
and geologist friends who have studied it
believe it will stay quiet.
Other volcanoes can be more
dependably active. One example that I
expect to cause problems for Europeans,
perhaps within this next year, is Katla
volcano in southern Iceland. This volcano
has a history of significantly larger eruptions
than the one that snarled air traffic over
Europe last year, and is overdue for
an eruption. When it does, air-traffic
problems and air quality in Europe could
make tourists wish they had chosen a
different itinerary.
Again, like those unstudied faults, we
will be surprised by an eruption of a volcano
that has been quietly sleeping and ignored,
if not this year, almost certainly within the
next several years.
While we take note of, and quickly
forget, the numerous strong earthquakes
and run-of-the-mill volcanic eruptions
like Mount St. Helens in 1980, we always
have the chance for a truly remarkable
event, which nature throws at us every
few centuries or millennia. I don’t hope
to be fortunate enough to see one of these
events. Examples of these are the eruption
of a super volcano like Yellowstone, a
major impact of an asteroid or comet, a
giant solar flare, a major climate shift, or
even a pandemic. These types of natural
events have repeatedly happened, and will
continue to happen. Our civilization, with
its burgeoning population and increasing
dependence on technology, isn’t designed
to easily handle such an event. However,
I’m betting such an event doesn’t happen
in 2012 and, if it does, it won’t be the end
of the world. Let’s have a great new year’s
party in 2013, knowing another doomsday
was averted.
Rauno Perttu • 541-899-8036
jrperttu@charter.net