Appendix A: Trivia Questions
1)The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has placed tsunami detection buoys at various sites around the world, including a station 690 nautical miles southeast of Tokyo. How big was the tsunami wave generated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake as measured there?
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- 100 ft
- 50 ft
- 10 ft
- 2 ft
Out at sea, tsunami waves are often only a foot or two high. It is not until they approach shore that the waves slow and “pile up,” creating the high-amplitude waves we experience on the coast.
2) If you are indoors when an earthquake occurs, the best thing to do is:
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- Leave the building
- Stand in a doorway
- Get under a desk
- Duck into a stairwell
Leaving a building can be dangerous, as you may be struck by glass and masonry may be falling off the building. The best thing to do is to get under a sturdy piece of furniture, if available, and hold on until the shaking has stopped.
3)When was the last major Cascadia subduction zone earthquake?
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- 1906
- About 500 years ago
- 9 pm, January 26, 1700
- At the end of the last glaciation
4)What is subduction?
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- One plate sliding past another in the plane of Earth’s surface
- The formation of new ocean floor
- Mineral transformations driven by heat and temperature
- A plate sinking into Earth’s interior
Subduction is the process of one tectonic plate diving down beneath another. As an aside, it commonly leads to mountain-building, which geologists call “orogeny,” making the rather lewd-sounding phrase “subduction leads to orogeny” perfectly true.
5)In their documentary, “Unprepared,” Oregon Public Broadcasting refers to which of the following as “Oregon’s Seismic Achilles Heel”?
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- Its schools
- Its bridges
- Its fuel infrastructure
- Its water infrastructure
“Oregon’s petroleum reserves, along with substations, key pipelines and natural gas storage, are highly concentrated in one stretch along the Willamette River” on soils that have a medium to high probability of liquefying in a M 9 Cascadia earthquake. That means that the ground beneath 90 percent of Oregon’s fuel supply could become runny goop in seconds, potentially causing a major spill into the Willamette River.