We're Pacific NW U.S. earthquake experts ready to talk about tsunamis, earthquake early warning and more

[u/WaQuakePrepare]

EDIT: We are pretty much done! Thanks everyone for the great questions. We have some folks that could check in later if we didn’t get to your question or if you discover us later today but the answers won’t be right away. Remember no matter where you are, we invite you to drop, cover and hold on at 10:20 am Thursday. Learn more at shakeout.org

Oct. 20 is the Great ShakeOut, where millions of people across the country practice earthquake safety and drop, cover and hold on under a sturdy object. Today, we have experts in Washington state and Oregon talking about ShakeOut, earthquakes and we can even touch on Pacific Northwest volcanoes. For instance, did you now it’s possible to now get a warning on your phone before an earthquake strikes? It’s called the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System.

We are a team with a variety of expertise particularly in the Pacific Northwest including: earthquakes (science/physics, monitoring, protective actions, preparedness), tsunamis (tsunami safety, hazards, modeling, preparedness, and recovery), structural engineering/building performance and emergency preparedness.

PROOF HERE. More proof here.

From Washington Emergency Management Division:

Brian Terbush

Elyssa Tappero

Mark Pierepiekarz, P.E., S.E.

Hollie Stark

Dante DiSabatino

From Pacific Northwest Seismic Network:

Bill Steele

Dr. Renate Hartog

Dr. Alex Hutko

From Washington Department of Natural Resources (Washington Geological Survey):

Corina Allen

Daniel Eungard

From Simpson Strong-Tie (Structural Products and Solutions including Earthquake Retrofits):

Emory Montague, S.E.

From Oregon Office of Emergency Management:

Althea Rizzo

[u/BadAsianDriver]

If tactical nukes go off in Ukraine can you detect them ?

[u/WaQuakePrepare → u/BadAsianDriver]

Seismology is one of the traditional fields involved in detection of underground nuclear testing since they can be as large as M6 earthquakes. The PNW is around 80 degrees away from Ukraine. We don't monitor outside of our region, but we still detect earthquakes from around the world. At 80 degrees, we can probably detect M4.5 earthquakes.... does that mean we can detect a nuke? If that nuke was buried underground and big enough, yes we'd likely see it. If a nuke were to explode at the surface where a lot of the energy leaks into the atmosphere and doesn't couple into the ground, then we'd likely not be able to see it if it's similar in size or smaller to the reported underground nuclear tests in the DPRK which, for reference, had seismic magnitudes in the rough neighborhood of M5.0. Infrasound acoustic arrays are also another common tool used to detect nuclear tests. There are infrasound stations in the PNW around some of our volcanoes, but they are not configured like the various IMS (International Monitoring System) infrasound arrays are for nuke detection. https://www.ctbto.org/our-work/ims-map
-Alex, PNSN