Major Earthquakes off Western Canada
Major earthquakes in the Queen Charlotte Islands since 1990 (Image credit USGS)
Squeezed between the subduction zones of Cascadia to the south and Alaska to the north, it’s unsurprising that western Canada should be subject to major earth movements. The USGS historic earthquakes list shows 8 events of ≥M6.0 in the west of the country in the last century four of them in the Queen Charlotte Islands region.
Though significant by any standards, the tremor of October 28 is not the largest earthquake to be recorded in the area. That dubious honour belongs to the 1949 event which occurred along the Queen Charlotte Fault a little way further north. At M8.1 it was around 2.5 times larger than the more recent event (the magnitude scale is logarithmic).
Sources
NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Tsunami bulletin. (2012). Accessed October 28, 2012.
USGS. M7.7 – 139km S of Masset, Canada. (2012). Accessed October 28, 2012.
Natural Resources Canada. The M8.1 Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) Earthquake of August 22, 1949. (2011). Accessed October 28, 2012.
CBS News. Hawaii Tsunami Waves Smaller Than Expected. (2012). Accessed October 28, 2012.
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