Last update: March 8, 2011 at 9:20 am by By Armand Vervaeck
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Since a few months the transform fault zone about 350 km out of the Coos Bay Oregon coast is discharging energy by means of earthquakes of magnitude 5.x The Blanco Transform Fault as it is called, has become the most intensely studied ocean transform fault in the world.
Oregon State University scientists have completed a analysis of an earthquake fault line that extends some 200 miles off the southern and central Oregon coast that they say is more active than the San Andreas Fault in California.
The Blanco Transform Fault Zone likely won’t produce the huge earthquake many have predicted for the Pacific Northwest because it isn’t a subduction zone fault. But the scientists say an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 to 7.0 is possible, if not probable in the near future, and their analysis suggests that the region may be under some tectonic stress that potentially could affect the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
