2011-04-13

Alaskan megathrust

Alaska-Aleutian megathrust

Alaska is a a seismically active state, perhaps the more so than any of the other states in the United States. The Alaskan/Aleutian Megathrust faultline which runs along the coast of Alaska is also considered to be a fault line that is characteristically longer than the Cascadia Fault-line that runs along the Pacific West Coast. The Alaska/Aleutian faultline was most notably responsible for the 1964 Earthquake in Alaska. This megathrust fault, while large also happens to form the northeast boundary of the Pacific Plate. This fault happens to extends east along the Aleutian arc into south-central Alaska along which the Pacific plate is subducted beneath the North American Plate which gives rise to the Aleutian arc and islands. It is significantly one of the worlds most active seismic faults, more than likely before the Cascadia Fault. In the past, it has been home to a number of repeated giant and also greatly damaging earthquakes and equally matching tsunamis.

One of the many characteristics of the Aleutian-Alaska megathrust fault includes the fact that the fault is subducted, with what are considered high standing ridges and large seamounts, characteristic of large faults. Of course, in the same way this also leads to the fact that there are several other conditions that would and could easily lead to continued lateral rupture: a trench that runs from to Attu Island, is more or less thickly charged with sediment shed from the glaciated Alaskan drainage. The earthquake that this fault churned out in 1964 in Alaska was also the largest recorded in the United States having been measured at magnitude 9.2.

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Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska-Aleutian_megathrust