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Evidence for a Large Earthquake and Tsunami 100-400 Years Ago on Western Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John J. Clague  and
Peter T. Bobrowsky
John J. Clague
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Canada, 100 West Pender St., Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 1R8, Canada
Peter T. Bobrowsky
Affiliation:
Geological Survey Branch, Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, 1810 Blanshard St., Victoria, British Columbia V8V 1X4, Canada
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Abstract

A peaty marsh soil is sharply overlain by a sand sheet and intertidal mud at tidal marshes near Tofino and Ucluelet, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Foraminifera and vascular plant fossils show that the buried soil was submerged suddenly and was covered quickly by sand. Radiocarbon ages place this event between 100 and 400 yr ago. The coastal subsidence suggested by the submergence occurred in an area of net late Holocene emergence, perhaps during the most recent great earthquake on the northern part of the Cascadia subduction zone. The sand sheet overlying the peaty soil records the tsunami triggered by this earthquake. Similar stratigraphic sequences of about the same age have been reported from estuaries along the outer coasts of Washington and northern Oregon, suggesting that hundreds of kilometers of the Cascadia subduction zone may have ruptured during one, or a series of plate-boundary earthquakes less than 400 yr ago.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , March 1994 , pp. 176 - 184
Copyright
University of Washington

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