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Science 22 May 1987:
Vol. 236. no. 4804, pp. 942 - 944
DOI: 10.1126/science.236.4804.942
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Articles

Evidence for Great Holocene Earthquakes Along the Outer Coast of Washington State

BRIAN F. ATWATER 1

1 U.S. Geological Survey at Department of Geological Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195.

Intertidal mud has buried extensive, well-vegetated lowlands in westernmost Washington at least six times in the past 7000 years. Each burial was probably occasioned by rapid tectonic subsidence in the range of 0.5 to 2.0 meters. Anomalous sheets of sand atop at least three of the buried lowlands suggest that tsunamis resulted from the same events that caused the subsidence. These events may have been great earthquakes from the subduction zone between the Juan de Fuca and North America plates.

Submitted on December 23, 1986
Accepted on March 11, 1987


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