Caltech Scientists Eagerly Await Lessons From Monster Quake

PASADENA - As they parsed the historic, magnitude-8.9 earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan early Friday, scientists at the California Institute of Technology couldn't help but relish a silver lining: the data.

With magnitude-5 aftershocks still registering on the digital maps beside them, scientists warned of ongoing reverberations along the United States' West Coast as the day drifted toward high tide.

But focus had already shifted to the anticipated gold mine of data from the world's fifth largest recorded earthquake, measured by its most seismologically advanced country.

Japan's investment in an advanced network of tools to monitor and provide early warning for earthquakes and tsunamis seemed to work

Friday, according to those on the ground. And when the dust settles, these tools
will also provide an unprecedented cache of quality data.
"Absolutely, this is by far the best monitored earthquake," said Tom Heaton, director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory at Caltech. "The Japanese have traditionally invested very heavily in recording earthquakes and in their building structure, and especially since the Kobe earthquake ... and we anticipate just an incredible treasure trove of data

Experts gutted inevitable queries about whether Southern California's Big One would look like Japan 2011 when it hits. Rather they suggested we look northwest for a comparable event. And in that case they are anxious to apply what they learned from Friday's quake.

"It will be useful to look at the seismological data from Japan as well as how the built environment has responded to that because of the severity and character of ground shaking - all of that is very relevant," said USGS scientist Robert Graves.

"What's especially important in the U.S. is we expect an even larger earthquake on our own Cascadia Subduction Zone," said Heaton, specifying that related hazards are located in Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Colombia - not along the San Andreas fault that runs through inland Southern and Central California.

"We don't believe we could have an 8.9 here," Heaton said.

"If you want the Big One, you'll have to go to Portland," remarked Lucy Jones, chief scientist for the USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project for Southern California.

Graves explained that known faults in Southern and Central California simply don't have long structures like the Subduction Zone that caused the Japan quake.