
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 5, 1991                   TAG: 9104050077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GEOLOGISTS: GIANT QUAKE COULD HIT PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Geologists have discovered striking evidence that the Pacific Northwest, long viewed as relatively safe from earthquakes, is a seismic danger zone that could produce one of the strongest earthquakes ever.

"We now realize that the most dangerous fault in the United States lies off the Pacific Northwest," said Dr. Thomas Heaton, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey office in Pasadena, Calif. A similar earthquake risk exists at a fault off the coast of Alaska, but the region is very sparsely populated.

The new evidence is reported in today's issue of the journal Science by James C. Savage and Michael Lisowski, geologists with the Geological Survey office in Menlo Park, Calif.

Using measurements obtained over eight years, they found that mountains along the Olympic Peninsula of Washington are slowly being squeezed together while the coastline rises; both are clear signs that major earthquake stresses are building in the region.

The scientists did not project when a quake might occur but said enough strain had built up on the fault to warrant serious efforts to revise building codes and to modify existing buildings.

In fact, the researchers said, the stresses they observed could cause a quake measuring up to 9.5 on the Richter scale. Such an earthquake would cause most of the buildings in a city like Portland, Ore., to fall.

by CNB