But research in the last 20 years has shown that the Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands are a seismic and volcanic hotbed, with a potential to trigger tsunamis that pose a risk to the rest of the Pacific Basin.
A magnitude 9 earthquake in that region in 1952 caused significant damage elsewhere on the Pacific Rim, and even less-powerful quakes have had effects throughout the Pacific Basin.
"There's not a large population in the Russian Far East, but it's obviously important to the people who live there. Thousands of people were killed in tsunamis because of the earthquake in 1952. And tsunamis don't stay home," said Jody Bourgeois, a University of Washington professor of Earth and space sciences.
Bourgeois will discuss the seismic and volcanic threats in the Kamchatka-Kurils region Monday (Dec. 3) during the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Earthquakes greater than magnitude 8 struck the central Kurils in 2006 and 2007, and both produced large local tsunamis, up to about 50 feet. Though the tsunamis that crossed the Pacific were much smaller, the one from the 2006 quake did more than $10 million in damage at Crescent City, Calif.
In 2009, Sarychev Peak in the Kurils erupted spectacularly, disrupting air traffic over the North Pacific.
Clearly, determining the frequency of such events is important to many people over a broad area, Bourgeois said.
"Let's say you decide to build a nuclear power plant in Crescent City. You have to consider local events, but you also have to consider non-local events, worst-case scenarios, which includes tsunamis coming across the Pacific," she said.
But that is only possible by understanding the nature of the hazards, and the historic record for earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions in Kamchatka and the Kurils is relatively short. In addition, because the region was closed off from much of the world for decades, much of the information has started becoming available only recently.
Much has been learned in the last 10 years in the examination of tsunami deposits and other evidence of prehistoric events, Bourgeois said, but more field work in the Kamchatka-Kurils subduction zone is required to get a clearer picture.
"For hazard analysis, you should just assume that a subduction zone can produce a magnitude 9 earthquake," she said. So it is important to "pay attention to the prehistoric record" to know where, and how often, such major events occur.
Bourgeois noted that in the last 25 years research in the Cascadia subduction zone off the coast of Washington, Oregon, northern California and British Columbia has demonstrated that the historic record does not provide a good characterization of the hazard. It was once assumed the risks in the Northwest were small, but the research has shown that, before there were any written records, Cascadia produced at least one magnitude 9 earthquake and a tsunami that struck Japan.
Alaska's Aleutian Islands and the Komandorsky Islands, an extension of the Aleutians controlled by Russia, are another source of seismic and volcanic activity that need to be evaluated for their potential risk beyond what is known from the historical record.
"The Aleutians are under-studied," Bourgeois said. "The work in the Russian Far East is kind of a template for the Aleutians."
Ideally, a dedicated boat could ferry researchers to a number of islands in the Aleutian chain, similar to how Bourgeois and other scientists from the United States, Japan and Russia have carried out a detailed research project in the Kuril Islands in the last decade.
"The problem is that during the (research) field season, boats are commonly in demand for fishing," she said.
For more information, contact Bourgeois at 206-685-2443 or jbourgeo@uw.edu.
Vince Stricherz | Newswise
Further information:
http://www.uw.edu
Further reports about: > Earthquakes > Pacific coral > Russia > Seismic > examination of tsunami deposits > prehistoric events > subduction zone > tsunamis > volcanic activity
Tiny satellites reveal water dynamics in thousands of northern lakes
15.02.2019 | Brown University
Artificial Intelligence to boost Earth system science
14.02.2019 | Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie
For the first time, an international team of scientists based in Regensburg, Germany, has recorded the orbitals of single molecules in different charge states in a novel type of microscopy. The research findings are published under the title “Mapping orbital changes upon electron transfer with tunneling microscopy on insulators” in the prestigious journal “Nature”.
The building blocks of matter surrounding us are atoms and molecules. The properties of that matter, however, are often not set by these building blocks...
Scientists at the University of Konstanz identify fierce competition between the human immune system and bacterial pathogens
Cell biologists from the University of Konstanz shed light on a recent evolutionary process in the human immune system and publish their findings in the...
Laser physicists have taken snapshots of carbon molecules C₆₀ showing how they transform in intense infrared light
When carbon molecules C₆₀ are exposed to an intense infrared light, they change their ball-like structure to a more elongated version. This has now been...
The so-called Abelian sandpile model has been studied by scientists for more than 30 years to better understand a physical phenomenon called self-organized...
Physicists from the University of Basel have developed a new method to examine the elasticity and binding properties of DNA molecules on a surface at extremely low temperatures. With a combination of cryo-force spectroscopy and computer simulations, they were able to show that DNA molecules behave like a chain of small coil springs. The researchers reported their findings in Nature Communications.
DNA is not only a popular research topic because it contains the blueprint for life – it can also be used to produce tiny components for technical applications.
Anzeige
Anzeige
Global Legal Hackathon at HAW Hamburg
11.02.2019 | Event News
The world of quantum chemistry meets in Heidelberg
30.01.2019 | Event News
16.01.2019 | Event News
Gravitational waves will settle cosmic conundrum
15.02.2019 | Physics and Astronomy
Spintronics by 'straintronics'
15.02.2019 | Physics and Astronomy
Platinum nanoparticles for selective treatment of liver cancer cells
15.02.2019 | Life Sciences