More than 40 earthquakes on the US Pacific coast warn that an earthquake causes a possible tsunami

More than 40 earthquakes erupted along one of North America’s most active fault lines beginning Tuesday morning in the waters off the Oregon coast and continued through Wednesday, raising fears of a tsunami among residents of the Pacific Northwest.

The earthquake swarm ranged from magnitude 3.5 to 5.8 and occurred about 200 to 250 miles west of Newport, a city on the central Oregon coast., in an area called the White Fracture Zone, which is more active than the notorious San Andreas fault in California.

The Target Fracture Zone has produced more than 1,500 earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater since the 1970s, according to Oregon State University. “If you had asked me yesterday where on Earth a bunch of 5.0+ magnitude earthquakes would be most likely to occur in a single day, this would have been at the top of my list”, Harold Tobin, Director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington, told CNN.

Historians have recalled that the region was struck with a magnitude 8.7-9.2 earthquake on January 26, 1700, the largest known earthquake in continental United States history. That earthquake occurred in the nearby Cascadia Subduction Zone and triggered a tsunami strong enough to affect both the west coast and the coast of Japan.

According to the USGS database, the number of earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or greater equals three times the annual average, or three 5.0+ earthquakes per year, since 1980. However, the US National Tsunami Warning Center. The US reports that none of the more than 40 earthquakes this week have caused a tsunami watch, according to CNN. The National Weather Service also tweeted about the massive seismic activity, adding that there was no risk of a tsunami because little water was displaced. (I)