Scientists confirm megathrust quake danger exists not only in southern B.C., but also in the north
The potential for large quakes and tsunamis off the south coast has long been known, but now scientists are confirming another theory in the north of the province.
Following years of debate, scientists can now confirm that a fault zone off B.C.'s northern coast is capable of producing powerful megathrust earthquakes, the kind that can generate tsunamis.
The findings reveal what many researchers theorized: That the Pacific Plate is partially dipping beneath the North American Plate.
This comes more than a decade after a powerful 7.8-magnitude quake struck near Haida Gwaii, on Oct. 27, 2012.
At the time, scientists were puzzled by the quake's characteristics because it resembled activity normally seen much further south, in the Cascadia Subduction Zone off Vancouver Island and Washington State.
The 2012 quake had a thrust mechanism which was not typical of the Queen Charlotte Fault, where plates usually slide past each other horizontally.
'So not just sliding, but also going a bit under North America,' said Mladen Nedimovic, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Dalhousie University.
The research team used a state-of-the-art, 15-kilometre-long hydrophone streamer. Essentially, a very long wire with thousands of underwater microphones attached.
They then scoured the fault from northern B.C. to southern Alaska.
The breakthrough will allow researchers to better predict what types of earthquakes to expect.
'They're both large,' Nedimovic explained. 'But the ones where one plate pushes under another are the type that can produce tsunamis.'
Scientists still can't predict exactly when a quake might hit, but the findings will help governments better prepare.
'It's not just about saving lives, but also about protecting critical infrastructure,' he added.
The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances, and included research from Canadian and American scientists, including from Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
21 hours ago
- CBC
Building peace through curiosity
Scholars at UBC Okanagan are analyzing an 800 year old Spanish book, looking for clues that might help us today. Francisco Pena is leading the project.
Globe and Mail
2 days ago
- Globe and Mail
Canada is hosting the world's biggest dementia conference for the first time in a decade. What's changed since then?
This week, researchers from around the globe are descending upon downtown Toronto to attend the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, the world's biggest and most influential meeting for dementia research. The gathering is a chance for the international dementia community to discuss the latest research in the field; it's also where significant breakthroughs are often unveiled. At a related event on Saturday, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) – Canada's health research funding agency – announced $44.8-million in new funding for dementia and aging-related research initiatives, including the creation of 16 teams that will study everything from Alzheimer's biomarkers to dementia in Indigenous populations. To set the stage for this year's conference, The Globe and Mail checked in with Jane Rylett, a professor at Western University and scientific director at the CIHR Institute of Aging, which hosted Saturday's event. The last time this global conference was held in Canada was in 2016, nearly a decade ago. How has the dementia research landscape changed since then? This is a really important inflection point. There is a new class of drugs, the antibody therapy, that came into the market within the last three or four years; they probably will be approved in Canada in the coming years. But while there's huge hope around it . . . right now, there's a lot of debate around if they're really beneficial. For certain people, they don't work at all; other people have negative side effects by creating inflammation in the brain. And the benefit-to-risk ratio is not great. So I think at this year's conference, it's going to be really important to hear about new findings with that. Something that's really gained momentum over the last few years is stepping back from the pharmacological approach to treatment and saying, 'What else can we do that will reduce the risk of developing dementia?' Health system urged to brace for major shift in dementia demographics The other thing that's changed is there's always been an 'amyloid hypothesis' of Alzheimer's disease, based on these toxic peptides that get made in the brain and clearly have a role in brain health and development of dementia. But during these nine years, there's been a much greater move towards understanding the role of those and recognizing that while they're still important, they're not the whole story. Now there's more openness to looking at other hypotheses about how brain health can be impacted during the life course and can lead to dementia. How should people feel about this present moment? Thinking back to 2012, the United States' health department set an ambitious goal to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer's disease by 2025. But here we are today and that goal is far from met. When people or groups make those kinds of statements, it doesn't necessarily mesh with the complication of the thing. And then what happens is people see [the missed deadline] and think, well, it didn't happen. That's always the danger of doing something like that. The brain is a complex thing, it really is. The problem with something like Alzheimer's disease is it's so multi-faceted and it's a spectrum. There's so many areas of the brain that are impacted and the clinical presentation can look similar for people but what's happening in their brain, and where the degeneration is initiated, can be quite different. There's no one pill that you're going to have that's going to be able to change the course or alleviate the symptoms. So was it realistic to say in 2012 that this could be cured by 2025? Probably not. But it stimulated a lot of activity. We understand much more about the underlying pathology and the pathogenesis of the disease. And stepping back was an important thing, saying what can we do that is not a pharmaceutical or a pill? What are the life, behavioural and other things that we can do? Canada has a chance to change the Alzheimer's experience - let's not squander it There's been a lot of focus on the funding cuts in the U.S. that are under way right now, including to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). How has that affected things? is it looming over the conference this year? Yes. A number of Canadian researchers also have been funded by NIH, either in their own right or as subcontracts on larger studies within the U.S., and for the most part, that has been ended, which is very problematic. So we have a number of very good Canadian researchers in all fields that have lost substantial funding, and we don't have the resources in Canada to replace that. One of the big question marks is the impact it's going to have on the number of Americans that are going to be able to attend the conference. And I don't know the answer to that yet. Let's talk about Canadian researchers. What role are they playing within the broader effort? Canadian researchers are leaders internationally in these fields of study. There's really significant work being done by Canadians in the biomarkers area, so the diagnostic area. We have a lot of expertise around how to develop and promote new methods for supporting caregivers and persons with dementia. Alzheimer's trial brings at-risk patients hope for the future, but new doubts in the present We've got outstanding Indigenous cognitive health researchers that are developing new culturally safe and appropriate diagnostic and caregiving methods. And we do have some very good work going on around pathogenesis, looking at changes in the brain during aging and how that may lead to loss of cognition. That's important because you really need to understand where those earliest changes come from. Those are the targets where you need to develop drugs and therapies. This interview has been edited and condensed.
CTV News
2 days ago
- CTV News
Women are using AI less than men in the workplace, Harvard study suggests
A Harvard study found that women are using AI significantly less then men. (Pexels) As artificial intelligence, or AI, becomes more integrated into our daily lives, a study from Harvard University suggests women are using it significantly less in the workplace than men, which may have professional consequences. In their study, Harvard examined data from 18 studies covering more than 140,000 individuals worldwide. It found that women were using AI in the workplace at a rate 25 per cent lower than men. Tech educator Avery Swartz says women are less likely to test out AI, particularly in the workforce, because of a confidence gap. 'Women are less risky in the workforce in general, because statistically, they are more likely to be penalized or punished for taking a risk,' she told CTV Your Morning on Thursday. 'A man using emerging technology is called innovative. A woman using emerging technology is cheating.' Swartz adds that there's less opportunity in educating women how to us AI properly saying women are more hesitant than men to try it. She says that over time, the gender gap will be exacerbated, which could mean women will be less likely to advance their careers, leading to a wider gap in pay inequity. Swartz warned that AI will eventually touch every job in the force. Jobs in sectors where there's a high percentage of women, like the clerical administration space, communications, healthcare and caregiving are being hit first. She encouraged women to get involved with AI by testing it out on their own. Swartz also recommended signing up for AI training programs run by companies like Google or Open AI, or through local community centres and libraries. This past May, Prime Minister Mark Carney emphasized in his mandate letter that government must deploy AI 'at scale,' focusing on 'results over spending, and by using scarce tax dollars to catalyse multiples of private investment.' Carney also created a new ministry in his government, naming former journalist Evan Solomon his artificial intelligence and digital innovation minister.
