Daily Archives: January 26, 2012

New Website for Oregon Sea Grant

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New Sea Grant WebsiteOregon Sea Grant has a brand new Website, with fresh content and a host of special features.

Program director Steve Brandt called it “a modern, engaging site that reflects Sea Grant’s mission and our status as an integrated program of research, education and public engagement.”

Visitors will find current news about Sea Grant’s ocean and coastal science initiatives, announcements of grant and fellowship opportunities, and profiles of Sea Grant-supported research and student scholars. Content ranges from short videos about marine safety and seafood buying  to in-depth features about critical  topics such as tsunami and climate change preparedness, marine spatial planning and invasive species.

The site provides access to hundreds of Sea Grant publications and videos – many of them free.

The site is built on the Drupal content management system, and was developed by Sea Grant communications, led by webmaster Pat Kight,  in cooperation with Oregon State University’s Web Communications and Central Web Services units.

 

 

State rolls out new tsunami hazard maps

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Coos Bay tsunami mapThe state has issued the first of a planned series of 80 new, high-resolution maps that graphically illustrate the risks of tsunamis on the Oregon coast, this one covering Coos Bay.

The 48-by-52-inch map, published this week by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) shows in great detail which low-lying areas around Coos Bay are greatest at risk for tsunami inundation, by either a near-shore Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake or a more distant quake that sends waves traveling across the sea.

The agency is in the process of upgrading all its coastal tsunami maps, first produced in the early 1990s, to “incorporate all the best tsunami science that is available today,” according to a DOGAMI news release announcing the new map.

The map, in a printable, high-resolution format, is available on CD for $10.

The new, more detailed maps are based on the geologic record of previous tsunamis, as well as knowledge gained from recent earthquakes in Sumatra (2004), Chile (2010) and Japan (2011). They include projected tsunami wave height time series charts and a measurement of the exposure each community has to various tsunami scenarios, including a count of the number of buildings that would be inundated under each scenario. Evacuation routes are also shown.

DOGAMI has been working with many collaborators, including Oregon Sea Grant, to get the new maps produced and in the hands of the public, planners, emergency managers, elected officials and other local decision makers. The effort is tied to  NOAA’s National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, which DOGAMI administers in Oregon.

The agency plans to release additional maps as soon as they are ready, with a goal of having new maps for the entire coast by the middle of next year. The next set, due for release in February, will cover the North Coast from Netarts to Rockaway Beach, including Tillamook.

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