Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Crescent City Tsunami

The Triplicate started their six part series today on the tsunami that hit Crescent City in 1964. It was news to me that the earthquake that spawned the wave was a 9.2 magnitude quake. I was always under the impression it was only a 6 something on the richter scale.


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4 Comments:

At 8:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are several different measurements of earthquake intensity and magnitude, some based on the energy of the seismic waves and some on the observed effects of the quake. There's also sometimes a difference in reported values because some values describe the earthquake at the surface above its orgin (the epicenter) and at depth at the origin (the focus). In the case of the 1964 Alaska earthquake, "The reported Richter magnitudes (Ms) for this earthquake ranged from 8.4 to 8.6. The moment magnitude (Mw) is reported as 9.2."

Some good links:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1964_03_28.php
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/64quake.htm

 
At 10:03 AM, Blogger Just a Small Town Girl said...

Wow! I thought the same thing too, about the magnitude of the quake.
Then again, I was not around in 1964....

 
At 10:46 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

I was living in Tustin, in Southern California, back then.I actually remember reading about the '64 flood in the news back then, but don't remember anything about the tsunami.

As far as the size of the Alaska quake, I thought it was a six- something, but was just real close to the surface. I guess not.

 
At 9:20 AM, Blogger Carol said...

We could have a maginitude of the same size on the Little Salmon Fault.

 

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