What type of earthquake was the 1964 Alaska earthquake?
The Alaska earthquake was a subduction zone (megathrust) earthquake, caused by an oceanic plate sinking under a continental plate.
What type of fault caused the 1964 Alaska earthquake?
thrust fault boundary
The 1964 Alaska earthquake resulted from rupture along the thrust fault boundary bet- ween the downgoing Pacific Plate and the overriding North American Plate, causing widespread shaking and tectonic defor- mation.
What was the property damage of the 1964 Alaska earthquake?
Major structural damage occurred in many of the major cities in Alaska. The damage totalled 300-400 million dollars (1964 dollars). The number of deaths from the earthquake totalled 131; 115 in Alaska and 16 in Oregon and California.
How did the 1964 Alaska earthquake provide evidence for subduction?
Subduction zones like southern Alaska’s occur throughout the world, and the 1964 Alaska earthquake was the first to be generally understood by earth scientists as having occurred on a subduction zone interface: the slip was along the gently dipping boundary, or “megathrust fault,” between the denser downgoing oceanic …
What type of plate boundary caused the Great Alaska Earthquake?
convergent plate boundary
Plafker had confirmed that the earthquake occurred in a subduction zone. That’s a type of convergent plate boundary where one plate dives beneath another. Alaska’s long southern coastline marks where the Pacific Plate, moving north, dives beneath the North American Plate.
What is the longest lasting earthquake ever recorded?
A devastating earthquake that rocked the Indonesian island of Sumatra in 1861 was long thought to be a sudden rupture on a previously quiescent fault.
How many deaths did the 1964 Alaska earthquake cause?
The earthquake that occurred on March 27, 1964 was the largest in US history (magnitude 9.2 on the Richter scale) and the second largest ever recorded in the world. 1 Historical reports show that 115 people in Alaska died and an estimated 40-50 hospitalizations occurred for severe injuries.
How much damage was caused by the Alaska Earthquake?
The earthquake and ensuing tsunamis caused about $2.3 billion of damageThe earthquake and ensuing tsunamis caused about $2.3 billion of damage (equivalent to $311 million in 1964).
What type of landforms does subduction cause?
Various formations such as mountain ranges, islands, and trenches are caused by subduction and the volcanoes and earthquakes it triggers. In addition to causing earthquakes, subduction can also trigger tsunamis.
What type of fault is in Alaska?
The Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault in southeastern Alaska is analogous to California’s San Andreas fault, both in length and type (strike-slip). Both faults form a boundary where two blocks of Earth’s crust—the North American and Pacific tectonic plates—slide horizontally past each other in opposite directions.
What was the biggest earthquake in Alaska?
Magnitude 9.2
Magnitude 9.2: The 1964 Alaska Earthquake.
Will there be a mega tsunami?
There’s no evidence that this will happen. It is slowly—really slowly—moving toward the ocean, but it’s been happening for a very long time. Despite this, evidence suggests that catastrophic collapses do occur on Hawaiian volcanoes and generate local tsunamis.
What was the intensity of the 1964 Alaska earthquake?
Alaska earthquake of 1964, earthquake that occurred in south-central Alaska on March 27, 1964, with a moment magnitude of 9.2. It released at least twice as much energy as the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and was felt on land over an area of almost 502,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km).
What was the strongest earthquake in the world?
Earth Science FAQs – Geology and Tectonics The biggest earthquake ever recorded, of magnitude 9.5, happened in 1960 in Chile, at a subduction zone where the Pacific plate dives under the South American plate.