Uploaded February 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
On March 11, 2011, a devastating magnitude-9 earthquake struck off the coast of Tohoku, Japan, where the Pacific Plate dives beneath the Okhotsk Plate. On January 26th, 1700, the West Coast of the United States experienced a similar tsunami-generating megathrust earthquake. An earthquake like this will strike the Cascadia subduction zone again. How can we protect ourselves?
Residents of California, Oregon and Washington now have an earthquake early warning tool—the ShakeAlert© system, operated by the United States Geological Survey.
To download a copy of the mp4, see EarthScope / SAGE InClass: https://www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/animation/earthquake_early_warning_system_for_the_pacific_northwest
On March 11, 2011, a devastating magnitude-9 earthquake struck off the coast of Tohoku, Japan, where the Pacific Plate dives beneath the Okhotsk Plate. On January 26th, 1700, the West Coast of the United States experienced a similar tsunami-generating megathrust earthquake. An earthquake like this will strike the Cascadia subduction zone again. How can we protect ourselves?
Residents of California, Oregon and Washington now have an earthquake early warning tool—the ShakeAlert© system, operated by the United States Geological Survey.
To download a copy of the mp4, see EarthScope / SAGE InClass: https://www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/animation/earthquake_early_warning_system_for_the_pacific_northwest
![M7.2 Haiti Earthquake, August 14, 2021 [Tectonic setting extracted from 2 IRIS animations]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xzKQLmdAodA/mqdefault.jpg "M7.2 Haiti Earthquake, August 14, 2021 [Tectonic setting extracted from 2 IRIS animations]
Animation made to accompany the Recent Earthquake Teachable Moment PowerPoint presentation here: https://www.iris.edu/hq/retm/event/7042
This animation is a composite of TWO separate IRIS animations:
2010 Haiti Earthquake—10-yrs later: www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/animation/650
and
Hispaniola Tectonics & Earthquakes: www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/animation/714")
