Heart and Mind

Minami-Sanriku before

Saturday 19 March 2011

On the NPR website (which soon may lose federal support…?), I read an eloquent essay by astronomer and science commentator Adam Frank, who was reflecting on an e-mail from Pete J. of Australia, which said in part,

“Somehow the science of it all has suddenly lost its appeal.”

Adam Frank reflected:

“....I was deeply struck by Pete's reaction. One of the comforts of science's vision is an understanding that the world has its own path. The cosmos and the planet have their own movements whose focus does not rest with us. Those movements can include the path of storm clouds, whether we pray for rain or not. They can also include the abrupt tear of tectonic plates slipping 400 meters to release energies we can scarcely imagine….

….But at some point we crash up against domains where science, or at least science alone, cannot help. In those moments, when we are numb with the immediacy of great suffering, explanations can become clay on the tongue."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/03/16/134549260/in-tragedy-and-suffering-when-science-loses-its-appeal

When I read this essay a few days ago, I really felt it expressed some of my current feelings with regard to the conflict between my involvement in the science of tsunamis and the devastation we have once again seen in Japan. For more than a decade after we started working on tsunami geology in the later 1980s, there were many “small” events which were locally devastating, and each time one happened, my human heart and my scientific mind were both very engaged. Then 2004 Boxing Day event occurred in the Indian Ocean, and the scale of devastation and misery was overwhelming. I didn’t want to be a tsunami scientist, somehow I felt guilt by association.

Now here in Sapporo, not far from the devastation, I go up and down. Sometimes my feelings draw me away from the science to find a poem or a photo or a sketch of something beautiful and calming and consoling. Then I come back to thinking about the science and looking for data, reading scientific reports, even thinking of possible future research on what’s happened here. Then I come face-to-face with a picture or story that’s heartbreaking.

Yesterday I was working on a blog entry about what Japanese scientists are trying to do right now, after and about the earthquake and tsunami. I was also starting to prepare a blog about the towns we visited last April on a tsunami field trip—towns where we were so graciously hosted, where we were educated about how they prepared for tsunamis (lessons we could take home to our own countries), and where now there is overwhelming devastation.

Some before and after on-the-ground images here:

http://www.news.com.au/world/minami-sanriku-the-town-that-disappeared-as-it-was-before-the-disaster/story-e6frfkyi-1226022577064

Minami-Sanriku after

I am starting to put together my own photographs from that trip with the images that have emerged since last Friday. I am beginning to be able to look at these images and on-the-ground ones like those on the web entry above, but it hurts.

And then... I see something like evidence of tsunami erosion in before-and-after photos, and my mind comes back to the science. I see a picture I took of a vertical evacuation structure in Minami Sanriku (the town that is no more) and then the “after” picture where it is still standing – it was four stories and it survived as a building – did it save lives, was it tall enough?

From another town we visited, Kesennuma City (indeed they showed us their museum, held a public lecture, hosted us a banquet/reception; and we stayed at a waterfront hotel, where some of us danced and sang karaoke into that April night), here is a poignant story:

http://www.slate.com/id/2288248/

This morning I have been feeling reflective and I went back to Adam Frank’s essay. It still says so much of what I feel. But… this time I got caught by this sentence:

They can also include the abrupt tear of tectonic plates slipping 400 meters to release energies we can scarcely imagine….

… and the scientist came back in me – I know of no case, including the very largest event, Chile 1960, that had slip of more than 10s of meters. The big energy comes from the length of the ruptures (100s of kilometers), not the slip, though the slip is indeed large – now measured on land at more than 10 meters and modeled offshore in places to be at least 20 meters on part of the 2011 Tohoku rupture. Such a rupture is HUGE, though it doesn’t sound like much, maybe, to the lay reader. This sentence in Adam’s essay made me want to start looking at references to see if I am mistaken somehow...

It won’t matter at all to most of his readers if it is a mistake. Indeed, it seems silly for it to matter even for me, but now it’s not so easy to read the essay as I want to -- to help my heart and to help integrate my scientific and feeling selves -- they don’t really live in different compartments. Except when they do.

How can we help?

People ask me how they can help. Right now, most help we can give is remotely--even for me in Japan. This is a link to a list of organizations, vetted by the University of Washington, who can accept your donations, but please consider not earmarking your donation, e.g., to a large agency which may well be able to use the money elsewhere when Japan's needs are met.
http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/japans-disasters-ways-that-you-can-help

If I come across more specific ways people can help, I will let you know. For one small example, we in the tsunami-science community have been organizing some people who can help translate and edit updates and information from our over-worked colleagues here in Japan.

Right now, I am aware that one of the best things I can do for these Japanese colleagues is to deflect unnecessary contacts with them. This includes me not bothering them, too. If you have specific questions about the tsunami and its predecessors and aftermath, I can try to answer them here [and see prior posts] or direct you to the many experts who can. Here is a list of University of Washington experts who can answer questions -- despite the title, it's been updated and now also includes experts on nuclear engineering:
http://www.washington.edu/news/uw-earthquake-tsunami-experts

I am ok -- and Hokkaido is not Honshu

18 March AM Japan time

In the last couple days, it has become clear to me that many people, including Japanese, when they say "Japan" basically mean "Honshu." Let me try to put this into perspective without more maps, because I don't have time to play with making and uploading more images at the moment. Look at any map of Japan, compare it to California. Japan is a VERY long country [more like Baja to Washington State], a tectonically active archipelago, or "island arc" as we say in geologic lingo. Hokkaido was only relatively recently settled by Japanese -- it's part of the original land of the Ainu. It's a large island much less densely populated than Honshu, which is the largest and most developed island in Japan's long chain. Thus people tend to say "Japan" when they mean "Honshu."

Imagine there is a crisis in a nuclear facility south of Los Angeles. Would we be calling on the city of San Francisco to evacuate? When the US advises its citizens to leave, how far should they go? Should I evacuate? It's true that my leaving Japan (scheduled for 31 March) may become logistically more difficult, depending on how things go, but I have a ticket for that day, Sapporo-Osaka-San Francisco-Seattle, not even going through Tokyo. Seems good to me. Otherwise I'd be better off taking a boat to Sakhalin. Or just staying put. This is not in any way heroism or false heroism on my part (I am not playing the part of the Harry Truman of Mt. St. Helens days). It's just fine here, I have things to do, why should I take that time to pack up and leave?

Last night I walked home with my young friend Olga--she says Russia, especially the Far East, is freaking out, it appears, and her family is trying to get her home. She says she made a map for them comparing how far away she is from Fukushima to how far away Moscow is from Chernobyl. We are farther away here in Sapporo, she told them. But while we shopped, her family texted her that they are trying to buy her a ticket out on 20 March.

So we walked and talked, and I listened to her and tried to calm her --I am one source of news information for her --her English is good, but she is afraid that she misses things in reading the news online, and her Russian news sources seem to be overreacting. I also talked with my colleague Tanya yesterday, she is on the Kamchatka Peninsula way to our north, and she is not worried in general, especially after hearing an analysis from a nuclear scientist from Moscow. Tanya was part of a soil sampling crew in Ukraine after the Chernobyl explosion.

I wanted to go to the store and try to buy a few "three days" items--after talking with my sister yesterday morning, I decided that it was only prudent to have some emergency supplies on hand, something I am always reminding others to do. I was worried that these items might be sold out. I figured that the condition of the shelves in my local supermarket (a very large one) would be a pulse of the situation and mood here in Sapporo.

Well, first we went to the 100-yen store to see if we could find matches and candles. We wandered the whole shop, I bought some water containers, the shelves seemed full of everything including canned fish and meat, so we bought some of that. Turned out after searching everywhere, we found the matches and lighters were right up front--of course! Japanese are pretty heavy smokers. Plenty there, and some small votive candles.

Then we were on to the huge grocery store next door. Olga looked up the word for candles and asked someone and was directed to the light bulbs... eventually we did find some longer tapers, and the check-out clerk seemed highly amused by our purchase. All shelves were full of everything, including bottled water and... RICE! Whereas those shelves had been empty two days before, now they were chucky jam full, with piles of big bags of rice on a pallet. I was positively giddy with the idea that this was a real sign for us not to worry. I hope I am right.

Please focus your concerns and efforts on the people in central and northern Honshu. I am indeed in the country of Japan, but Hokkaido is not Honshu.

From my 12 January blog:

Some basics about the island now called Hokkaido

Hokkaido—the Japanese Alaska? the Russian Kamchatka?

When I first came to Sapporo for a meeting in 2006, I heard a Japanese earth scientist referring to “Japan and Hokkaido” – this would be like saying “the US and Alaska” or “Russia and Kamchatka” [once, in the U.S., when a young Moscovite asked if I had been to Russia, I reponded yes, I’d been to Kamchatka, and she replied, “Oh, but that is not Russia…”] – indeed the three regions (in the case of Alaska, especially the Aleutian chain eastward to SW Alaska) have some commonalities in their geology, geography and human history. Though many differences, too.

Hokkaido, Kamchatka, and Aleutian Alaska are all frontiers, remote and wild. By now, Hokkaido is the most developed of the three, but still there is much wildness, and a sense of other-ness compared to the rest of Japan. Its climate and vegetation are northern temperate, with four seasons and mixed hardwood-conifer forest. Kind of like New England! No wonder William S. Clark was a success here [see the founding of Hokkaido University].

Nuclear Winter?

A few vignettes and thoughts about what has been happening recently

Midday local time 17 March 2011, then amended/supplemented later afternoon

The weather has become wintry, it felt like January as I walked in today. It’s snowing and blowing, currently winds are from the west. It’s a real system, and that means even more suffering for people in northern Honshu. Meanwhile, the world’s attention is turned toward Fukushima nuclear reactors.

I talked with my sister this morning, she was worried, and one thing that came up was the orderly and stoic response of Japanese people to the disaster. We talked about how Japan is prepared for these kinds of events, their Self-Defense Force particularly. What does the SDF do when things are calm? One thing is they build giant snow sculptures in Sapporo—a much better keep-fit occupation than many.

A work crew just came in to my office to change my air filter. I wonder if this is routine, or some preparation for potentially shutting off air flow from outside if there is nuclear fallout. Added later: now there are large plastic containers of water in the vestibule of the building --yes, they appear to be preparing for the possibility we shouldn’t go outside.

While they worked, I went to lunch, and while sitting at the table, it seemed to move. It was over very fast, so I decided it wasn’t an aftershock, that I’d “imagined” it, but then got back to my office to a note from Olga (on her shake-sensitive 11^th floor), and she felt it.

It was a 5.8 and toward the northern end of the rupture (data from USGS NEIC), closer to us, so it’s plausible, I guess, that we felt it. It's the red one on this map of all the earthquakes since the big one.

	MAG	UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s	LAT deg	LON deg	DEPTH km	Region
	5.8	2011/03/17 04:13:58	40.201	142.245	35.7	NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Media exposure (of me, for example) is followed by strange and poignant questions via e-mail--the latter such as, “My wedding is planned to take place on the coast of Washington next month, should I worry?” (my answer --no, just be informed and prepared). There there was someone else who was telling people that the biggest tsunami before Indonesia was Taiwan, and using me to fact check (dead wrong). Then today I got a detailed, annotated question from someone who is convinced that an asteroid must have been involved with this disaster because of the fires riding on top the tsunami and fires on tops of some buildings….

Science goes on… or doesn’t

Ironically, the nuclear situation has given earth scientists a break from media attention so they can focus on research in the aftermath, but on the other hand the nuclear situation is further impeding that research. When I went to my host Yuichiro Tanioka’s office today, he was there, seemed relaxed, and had managed to read my e-mails, which I’d tried to keep to a minimum (about my scheduled departure 31 March). Not only is Tanioka-sensei a leading tsunami seismologist, but he is also Director of the Institute of Seismology and Volcanology here at Hokkaido University. After returning Saturday from having been in the earthquake in Tokyo on Friday, he was a wreck by Monday. Today he acknowledged that his respite came from the turn of the media away from the tsunami and toward Fukushima (I felt the same way when media contacts slowed down and then a couple interviews from Australia were cancelled—phew!). Then Tanioka also told me how the nuclear situation is affecting post-earthquake research.

The seismographs in the affected area were destroyed, so seismologists were trying to install new ones to understand all the post megaquake activity. However, the northeastern Honshu region was already virtually inaccessible due to earthquake and tsunami damage, plus rescue efforts, and now scientists are being turned back due to the leaking radiation at Fukushima. Tanioka also said a scientific ship and geophysical crew are all ready in port to go offshore to survey the sea floor, but are prohibited because of potential nuclear fallout.

In recent years, after about a week following an event, tsunami scientists get busy surveying the local tsunami effects. My colleague here from Hokkaido University, Yuichi Nishimura, has actually been out since Saturday morning after the quake, surveying the southern and eastern Hokkaido coastlines, which were affected, but roads and most buildings and power and water are ok, except for very close to the shoreline. We anticipate his report soon.

There are some photos online from another survey from the Chiba area, near Tokyo, moderately hit. This set includes pictures of soil cracking and liquefaction, a tetrapod brought onshore by the tsunami from the nearshore, and some tsunami effects:

https://picasaweb.google.com/masafumi.matsuyama/20110312?authkey=Gv1sRgCNn_qsv729_btwE&feat=directlink&fgl=true&pli=1#

There also is a set of photos from a hard-hit area, the Sendai plain, where Koshimura’s team of surveyors last weekend gave up after a little more than a day (no food, water, hotels, blocked roads, etc. etc.). Two things that struck me in these photos: 1) roads already plowed of debris by bulldozers (presumably) or snowplows turned to debris plows? (I speculate) and 2) mud everywhere! I think the mud is probably mostly from unvegetated agricultural fields. We are used to tsunamis leaving sand deposits, it remains for us to determine what factors influenced the deposits in this case.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107810019996197547457/Miyagi2011031213?authkey=Gv1sRgCLW4t6KRpODgkgE#

There are not and will not be for awhile reports from the hardest-hit areas. Read more about the conditions for scientists trying to work (and live!) here in the last few days:

http://www.coastal.jp/tsunami2011/index.php?Status

Are You Ready?

To the south of Fukushima, within a closer radius of the reactors, people are leaving or preparing. Japan has evacuated the immediate area, and the US has recommended a wider radius of evacuation to its citizens in that area. Some countries are beginning to recommend evacuation from Japan. In stores, I hear, there is no more bottled water, little or no rice, and no iodine tablets. I heard a medical expert say these tablets are only effective for growing children, I sure hope that’s who is getting them. A friend in the US is trying to send tablets to his friends here, but I also read that mail delivery has dropped to low priority, with no delivery in the most affected areas and slowdowns in many other places, including Sapporo. Highest priority for transport (and fuel) is search and rescue, helping refugees, and initial stages of recovery.

I feel like Hokkaido is a safe place, and that I needn’t try to get on an earlier flight when I have a good exit itinerary on 31 March: Sapporo – Osaka – SFO – SEA. Besides, there are people a lot closer to privation and potential danger than I am. I don’t need to try to take their places.

At my flat, I’ve looked around and consider what I would do if 1) I must stay indoors – not too bad, I have food for awhile; 2) we lose power—not so good, have headlamp, no candles and matches, 3) we lose gas – have plenty of clothes to stay warm, but perhaps not enough food that doesn’t need cooking (should go get some tinned foods?..that shelf was more empty than others two days ago but not as empty as rice shelves); we lose water—have quite a few large bottles right now leftover from a party, but could get more.

Now I am in Sapporo, and I am not expecting all this to take place, but they did just change the air filters and stockpile water in our institute building. Anyway, I’ll stop at the store tonight and maybe buy a few things, or at least be in reporter mode to check the mood of the situation there.

Lost in translation and sure to bring a smile amongst the worries: Report from a friend watching NHK this evening in the US [same after-noon time for me as I have been working and writing here]:

The faces on the screen -- Tepco officials, gov't ministers -- were all male and the two simultaneous translators female. One of the translators spoke several times of today as a "climax". She went on to speak of "douching" the spent-fuel rods in reactor 3. Ok, what was reported as I understand it: The rods, ordinarily submerged in a tank atop the reactor, have instead been exposed to air since Wednesday. If they catch fire they would spew radioactive particles, which would in turn impede further efforts to stabilize the plants. So the government is bringing in water cannons -- the ones used by riot police -- to try to cool those rods. This last-ditch effort is intended to facilitate running a new power line to the plants, in hopes of reactivating pumps for the cooling systems. (Some or all of this would be the climax.)

Final note, then I'm gonna post this: I was talking on skype with my dear friend Tanya in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, some LONG distance north of me, and her father called her cell to say he heard the cyclone we are having in Japan is coming to Kamchatka, and he is worried it will bring radiation with it. Well, there is not a rational basis for this worry, but I told her to tell him don’t worry, I’ll get it first… [not]

Nuclear Earthquakes and Paleoseismology

2 PM Tuesday, Ides of March

It’s snowing out, which normally would make me happy, but now makes me even more concerned for refugees in northern Honshu. And… it makes me think of nuclear fallout. …not going to happen, really. I just watched a video that, while acknowledging the recent 3^rd explosion and fire at #4 and leakage, made clear it’s not and won’t be Chernobyl. I am not in danger. But the stress levels for the country are so high and now higher.

Our Japanese hosts just decided to call off our workshop 28-30 March:

Dear Ben! Unfortunately the disturbed environmental condition by nuclear reactors accident at Fukushima has been becoming worse day by day. So we with Nakagawa-san, and Tezuka-san have to make decision calling off the workshop of end of this March. Please announce this decision to all participants quickly. Best regards, Amano T.

“the worst nuclear disaster except Chernobyl,” I just heard on a video news clip.

…. and on another clip [paraphrased] “What happened there can’t happen in the U.S. because we upgraded our systems since 9/11…(but then acknowledging that) the Japanese would have said much the same before this situation.”

I remember hearing that Japanese engineers came to Northridge, CA, after the heavily damaging earthquake there on 17 January 1994, to study the damage and then stating that such damage would not happen in Japan because of stronger earthquake engineering. Then Kobe happened …17 January 1995. The story as I tell it is second hand, but the statement “it can’t happen here” feels like a red flag to me. That said, lots and lots of buildings here withstood this Mw 9 earthquake.

So—this is why, as I’ve been saying to friends since Friday, nuclear regulatory commissions ask for “worst-case scenarios” from geoscientists and others, whereas community planning is typically for a typical flood or a 100-year event or something like that.

How does we generate “worst-case scenarios” for earthquakes and tsunamis? Giant earthquakes and tsunamis don’t happen that often, in any one place, commonly on the order of every 500 years, or more. And with events that happen rarely (extreme example—asteroid impact), we may not even know (or believe or comprehend) they can happen.

I have read an expert interviewed who said that these power plants in Japan were designed for a magnitude 8.2 earthquake (and presumably tsunami!). That’s probably because in recent history, which is long in Japan, 8.2 was as big or bigger than known to happen on this coast (see table).

Here are “selected earthquakes of general historic interest in Japan, in the instrumental historical record (USGS list) (I think there are likely more large events in the earlier record, but unless they had fatalities, they didn’t necessarily get onto a list) (underlines mean there is more information on the USGS NEIC website):

1891-10-27: Mino-Owari, Japan – M 8.0 Fatalities 7,273

1896-06-15: Sanriku, Japan – M 8.5 Fatalities 27,000 –a famous “tsunami earthquake” – deaths almost entirely from tsunami

1923-09-01: Kanto (Kwanto), Japan – M 7.9 Fatalities 143,000 – this is the most recent one that hammered Tokyo

1927-03-07: Tango, Japan – M 7.6 Fatalities 3,020

1933-03-02: Sanriku, Japan – M 8.4 Fatalities 2,990 – an outer-rise event

1943-09-10: Tottori, Japan – M 7.4 Fatalities 1,190

1944-12-07: Tonankai, Japan – M 8.1 Fatalities 1,223

1945-01-12: Mikawa, Japan – M 7.1 Fatalities 1,961

1946-12-20: Nankaido, Japan – M 8.1 Fatalities 1,330

1948-06-28: Fukui, Japan – M 7.3 Fatalities 3,769

1964-06-16: Niigata, Japan – M 7.5 Fatalities 26

1995-01-16: Kobe, Japan – M 6.9 Fatalities 5,502 – the Kobe earthquake was a shallow crustal event, not so large, but very damaging

2003-05-26: Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.0

2003-09-25: Hokkaido, Japan Region – M 8.3

2003-10-31: Off the East Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.0

2004-09-05: Near the South Coast of Western Honshu, Japan – M 7.2

2004-09-05: Near the South Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.4

2004-10-23: Near the West Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 6.6 Fatalities 40

2004-11-28: Hokkaido, Japan Region – M 7.0

2005-08-16: Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.2

2005-11-14: Off the East Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.0

2009-08-09: Near the South Coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.1

I added: 2010-03-09: Off the Northeast coast of Honshu, Japan – M 7.2

[now add bunches more, mainshock and aftershocks, since 11 March 2011]

Systems like reactors and bridges are overdesigned to withstand forces greater than the maximum projected earthquake. Moreover, it looks like the earthquake engineering in this case worked ok, though I am not sure about cracks, etc. But there’s more than the earthquake! Here’s some of a scenario, real and envisioned, for an event like this, a scenario that I would HOPE had been considered for a coastal reactor site along Japan’s subduction zone before they were built:

• The reactors shut down automatically during the quake.
• But then they have to be cooled down.
• All around the plant is destruction from the earthquake and especially the tsunami – roads damaged, access impaired, people injured,… on and on.
• Power is out – ok, they have backup generators to pump water.
• But generators are flooded by the tsunami and do not work – ok, they have a battery, but of quite short life. Not so easy to get back-ups.
• Water supply lines broken --pump in sea water (ends working life of plant)
• Cooling can’t take place fast enough, steam and other gases building up, etc. etc., explosions and fires, minor radiation leaks.
• Partial meltdown, more serious radiation leakage, at least one crack in containment; other radiation sources (spent fuel, wastewater pools) are sources of radiation.
• Meltdown, which in the best case at THIS point is contained.

I am quite sure that a scenario something like this was written. The situation now is not due to bad decisions at the present time, but probably limited information or analysis about “worst case scenario” more than 40 years ago or so when they were planning. Fukushima 1 is one of the oldest operating reactors, and, when you think about it, we were only beginning to understand plate tectonics and subduction zones around the time it would have been planned!

Reactor	Type	Net capacity	Utility	Commercial Operation
Fukushima I-1	BWR	439 MWe	TEPCO	March 1971
Fukushima I-2	BWR	760 MWe	TEPCO	July 1974
Fukushima I-3	BWR	760 MWe	TEPCO	March 1976
Fukushima I-4	BWR	760 MWe	TEPCO	October 1978

Source: World Nuclear Association

What about the historic record? When was the last magnitude 9 (or so) event in this area? Well, it’s hard to put even moderately specific magnitudes on events before instrumentation. Even now, scientists will disagree about magnitudes of earthquakes as recent as… all of them! Usually the disagreement are ±0.1 or so, but sometimes more, and for events in the earlier 20^th century, many events are still not well quantified and perhaps can’t be. But as of Friday night, I heard my colleagues referring to the 869 A.D. Jogan earthquake and tsunami as the precursory event of this scale – approximately, of course, but the tsunami reached kilometers inland, unlike any more recent case till 11 March 2011.

Minoura, K., F. Imamura, D. Sugawara, Y. Kono, and T. Iwashita, （2001）The 869 Jogan tsunami deposit and recurrence interval of large-scale tsunami on the Pacific coast of northeast Japan, Journal of Natural Disaster Science, v.23, no.2, 83-88.

Satake, K.; Sawai, Y.; Shishikura, M.; Okamura, Y.; Namegaya, Y.; Yamaki, S., 2007. Tsunami source of the unusual AD 869 earthquake off Miyagi, Japan, inferred from tsunami deposits and numerical simulation of inundation American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting abstract #T31G-03

See Wikipedia article for additional references in the Japanese language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_Sanriku_earthquake_and_tsunami

Even though 869 A.D. is a historic event in Japan, understanding its scale comes partly from paleoseismology –studying the record from evidence such as tsunami deposits and liquefaction–evidence in the latter case of strong shaking. Minoura et al. (2001) estimated by tsunami modeling that the Jogan earthquake was a Mw (moment magnitude) 8.3. Satake et al. (2007) also modeled the tsunami and came up with an estimate of 8.1-8.3. They also predicted that such an earthquake was almost sure to happen (99% probability) in the next 30 years. Less than four years later (AGU meetings are in December), it happened, only it was more than 10 times bigger than that.

In Wikipedia, the article uses the term “869 Sanriku” because Jogan is the name of an era, not a place. Sanriku, however, is the northern end of this zone, so… so it goes. At least one of the Wikipedia authors is Japanese and cites the Japanese-language literature, also giving a “surface wave magnitude” to the reconstructed event of 8.6, but this magnitude saturates at about 8…. I haven’t tracked down the source of that number or the likely error in labeling it surface-wave magnitude.

Paleoseismology as a field of research basically has its roots in the 1980s, and these plants were designed in the 1960s and built in the 1970s.

Another nuclear power plant is involved in the story as well as in the development of paleoseismology.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/ -- The orphan tsunami (Atwater et al.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1700_Cascadia_earthquake

It’s a long story, but here’s a short version of how the Cascadia paleoseimological story got started: In designing a nuclear power facility for SW Washington State (the Satsop plant, in Elma, WA, not directly on the coast but some distance inland), the US Geological Survey got involved in evaluating seismic potential of the Cascadia subduction zone (which some even questioned WAS a subduction zone, but that’s ANOTHER story). Was it aseismic, as some interpreted, or could it produce big earthquakes, even though there was no historical record of one? Seismologist Tom Heaton of the USGS evaluated the potential by comparing CSZ to other subduction zones and thought it could. Seismologist Lynn Sykes of Columbia University compared it to other subduction zones and thought it wouldn’t. USGS geologist Brian Atwater asked the question—given that the historic record is so short, what kind of evidence might be in the marshes of coastal Washington State? Answer—big earthquakes cause coastal subsidence, so drowned marshes and forests would be a big clue. Not only did he find such drowned vegetation, but he found a sand layer he thought was a tsunami deposit. This was one of the important early paleoseismological studies. Many people worked on many sites, and finally even a historical record of the tsunami was found in the Japanese literature.

But the WPPSS Satsop plant construction in 1983 was shut down for financial, not for seismic-risk, reasons. And the studies of paleoseismology actually were published after that. Now the location is a park.

Added 19 March: Muckraking piece on Japan's nuclear power policies:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17/japan-s-nuclear-disaster-caps-decades-of-faked-safety-reports-accidents.html

Earthquake Predecessor

When ever I have wondered if, in my lifetime, I might experience a huge subduction-zone earthquake, my answer would have been—well, depends on whether I am living in the Pacific Northwest the next time Cascadia ruptures, which could be during my lifetime (and if I were to live it out in Seattle), but (I tell myself) the last one was in AD 1700, “only” 310 years ago, and it was a big one—about 9.0, so it takes time to build up enough strain to make another one that big. So I’ve figured in my reasonable but unrigorous way that it’s unlikely…though possible, and if it happens soon, it would be smaller than an 9.0. But if I were designing a nuclear power plant... go with the worst case.

Never in my wildest dreams or nightmares did I expect to experience a giant earthquake on some other subduction zone. A word about size --in the formal moment-magnitude scale, which basically measures the total energy released during the event, earthquakes larger than 8 are called “great earthquakes.” In the 7’s they are “large earthquakes,” and perhaps because ones of 9 or bigger are so rare (I suppose), they didn’t get a formal name, though nowadays people sometimes use “giant.”

I guess we came pretty close to having the great-earthquake experience while working in the Kurils in summers of 2006 and 2007, sandwiching two great (but not giant) earthquakes in the intervening winter months…camping at some spots that got obliterated during the ensuing tsunamis. So much for expert knowledge.

But each of these really great or giant events (bigger than the Kurils, the ones that are 8.9 or bigger, let's say) happens on one day in one year, over some finite stretch of coastline, and globally only a handful of times in a century. So that’s a pretty low chance you’ll experience it, unless you live on a zone ready to pop. And so far, the scientific question for any spot of whether the pop will be “great” or “giant” isn’t well constrained, though giants can’t recur in one place as often as greats, because they release much more of the accumulated energy. In fact, the energy released by just one giant event, Chile 1960, released as much energy as all of the magnitude 8 through 9 events IN A CENTURY [see to left, from IRIS].

If the pressure cooker blows off all its steam, the steam must build up again. OK, analogy more appropriate for volcanoes, but you get the idea. In earthquake lingo it’s called “stick-slip” behavior – the fault is stuck for some time, and then slips quickly, generating an earthquake and, if under water, a tsunami.

Northern Honshu “knew” the potential for a great earthquake-tsunami pair like this because, contrary to the reports, there _is_ such an event in the “historical record.” What the reporters mean to say is that there hasn’t been an event of this scale in Japan in the “instrumental record” (where actual size/energy release can be quantified). There is, however, at least one great or giant earthquake and tsunami in Japan’s historical record, known as the “Jogan earthquake” (and tsunami), which occurred in A.D. 869; the deposit is found under a historic ash layer from 915 A.D. (see below, from April 2010 field trip). Yes, although Japan’s written historical record is not continuous, it includes much older events than many regional historical catalogues such as the Pacific Northwest, which only goes back into the 19^th century, and earlier a few European visitors for short intervals. There were people in the Pacific Northwest before that, but they didn’t keep a calendrical record, though they did tell stories consistent with earthquakes and tsunamis.

My own understanding of this part of the coast of Japan started with a trip to see the record of the A.D. 869 Jogan tsunami on the Sendai plain--one of the regions so dramatically inundated on 11 March 2011. Sendai is a broad flat plain dominated by rice fields, and including an airport, where videos showed a brown, sludgy-like tsunami seeming to ooze across the surface (see above). I was out on this plain in April 2010, on a field trip during a tsunami conference. We were taken to the Sendai plain to examine the evidence for the Jogan tsunami and also to see the counter-tsunami measures for that region – informational signs, evacuation signs,

and the idea that storm mitigation [offshore riprap, low seawall, forest designed to stop salt air from the rice fields] might help mitigate the tsunami. Farther inland, a monument marked where the Jogan tsunami is thought to have reached. The geologic evidence comprises a sand layer within a loamy peaty soil and underlying a dated volcanic ash from A.D. 915 (see above).

I discuss more about trying to figure out how big this A.D. 869 tsunami and earthquake were in my blog on Nuclear Earthquakes. But it seems that no one expected a magnitude 9 here, from any kind of record, historical or not. Live and learn. The very hard way.

During The Big One

5 PM, Sunday 13 March, local time.
Two days ago, around this time, we at Hokkaido University's Institute of Seismology and Volcanology in Sapporo, Japan, were all glued to the TV, watching the tsunami roll in to southern and eastern Hokkaido, as the sun was setting.

About two hours earlier, I had been sitting at my desk/computer when the room started to move. I knew it was an earthquake. There had been one two days before, a 7.2, off the Sendai coast of northern Honshu--an earthquake I didn't feel, but others in Sapporo did, including Olga, who on the 11th floor of her building was scared. By THAT one. We did not know, nobody knew, what was to come.

On 11 March at around 2:45 PM local time, I wrote on my Facebook page:
earthquake right here right now

It was moderate motion, and it kept going, with some increase and decrease in the degree of shaking/rocking. After some time, I started to look at my watch -- how long could it last? I felt like I was on a ship, and the Earth was the ocean. I started to get seasick. Finally it petered off, though the blinds kept swaying. I wrote:
ok, the building just shook for over two minutes, i am just fine, a little motion sick,
actually--the motion seemed to kind of circular and rocking. curtain rods still moving

Then I went out in the hallway to find out what was what. A colleague there said "big earthquake" -- yes, big, but of course I wanted to know HOW big. Having never experienced a big earthquake (my maximum was 5.6 near San Jose, CA), I hadn't an internal gauge, but I did know that long-duration shaking characterizes big earthquakes. I went to the USGS website to see if the earthquake was registered -- it was, with a preliminary magnitude of... 7.9 off northern Honshu, same area as the 7.2 on 9 March, a location which I'd expected. Actually, though, I suppose I was expecting a larger magnitude given the duration of shaking, but I had no real basis for doubt. In any case, both my colleagues in the Institute and also the Tsunami Bulletin Board were mentioning tsunami. I wrote into Facebook:
It's a 7.9 off northern Honshu, there is a big tsunami warning, but don't worry, I am not in danger.

Well, 7.9's can make decent tsunamis, sure there would be some runup on the Sendai coast and surrounding region. I watched the TV with my colleagues, I could understand neither the speech nor the printed words, except for numbers, such as 6 m [maximum runup], and the map with four zones of warning -- red/white for maximum, red for intermediate, yellow for ... [I am not sure actually, of numbers], and clear for no danger. Sapporo was in the clear.

Then the videos started to come in. The first ones were not too dramatic, as we watched water rising against docks and seawalls. Pretty quickly, though, the maximum projections were up to 10 m, and the red-and-white most dangerous zone extended significantly. Cars and trucks in floating in the water were starting to tip over the tops of seawalls and even eroding them.

There were many felt aftershocks--why were we feeling aftershocks from a 7.9, when I didn't feel the 7.2? Two aftershocks got recorded in real time on my Facebook [I was running back and forth between my computer and the TV/situation room]:
3:11 --aftershock, more shaking right now
3:28 -- another aftershock, more as I've been watching live TV of the tsunami coming in to Miyagi prefecture, where we were on a tsunami field trip last year; it's a big tsunami, strong currents running through town; ok, a BIG aftershock right now!!!

I didn't have my camera in the TV room to begin with, I brought it in later. I am not sure I wrote the following before or after the first picture I took of the screen:

3:48 -- The tsunami runup projections are increased to 10 m in places, and all of Japan is on alert. I haven't seen the projections yet for Hawaii, it will take some hours to get there, but the tsunami bulletin board [I am on it] should be posting projections, I am not sure why they are quiet.

This is the tsunami coming in over the Sendai plain. The tsunami looked kind of sluggish and is full of vegetative debris here. It is carrying fires along with it! You can see that buildings are pretty much intact, despite the huge earthquake that had preceeded this.

If there is a time on the TV screen, it's in Japanese. I interpreted the runup numbers [in meters] to be measured, rather than predicted, because the predictions were in whole numbers.

The map at the lower right shows the levels of warning for all of Japan's coa stlines. It's hard to see the details, but by this time, the white/red zone had been expanded.

Why did the tsunami look so sluggish, rather like lava or a debris flow? I began to think of the setting, where I had been the previous April. There was a seawall along the coast, and a pine forest between the seawall and the many rice fields. The tsunami must have piled up on the sea-side of the seawall and now was pouring over, feeding a rather steady advance across the plain. It was so strange and compelling to see it in real time on the TV. Sometimes I wanted to yell at people when they seemed not to be making good decisions [get out of your car and run!].

The forecasts of tsunami size had been increased, and so had the earthquake amplitude. I didn't realize this at first -- in fact, the estimated earthquake size in Japan might always have been larger than 7.9, but here it is on the screen, around the same time our colleague Yoshinobu Tsuji appeared to comment on the unfolding events.

The tsunami hasn't advanced onto these fields yet, but you can see that the earthquake magnitude is up to 8.4.

My next Facebook entry was at 4:58:
The tsunami is arriving on Hokkaido. There is news of earthquake damage and some casualties. Tsunami videos mostly show strong currents carrying boats and cars, in some cases right over sea walls...

After this, most of my photos for awhile are shots of the tsunami wave behavior. Also some shots of the drowned Sendai airport. People were [safely] up on the roof of the building.

Someone in the seismology group brought in a printout of records from a station at Tarumai volcano, not far from Sapporo. The top diagrams are a strainmeter record, the lower diagrams are records from a three component seismograph [vertical, e-w, n-s]. The records are clipped because the seismograph was calibrated to measure smaller events. A bit later, we saw the record from a tiltmeter of the mainshock and two aftershocks.

I can't go on right now, I just looked at these images, and I am stunned and very sad:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm