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Rapid Resetting of an Estuarine Recorder of the 1964 Alaska Earthquake

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Rapid Resetting of an Estuarine Recorder of the 1964 Alaska Earthquake Rapid resetting of an estuarine recorder of the 1964 Alaska earthquake Brian F. Atwater* U.S. Geological Survey at Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1310, USA David K. Yamaguchi² 5630 200th Street S.W., #202B, Lynnwood, Washington 98036-6260, USA Stein Bondevik§ Department of Geology, University of Tromsù, N-9073 Tromsù, Norway Walter A. Barnhardt# U.S. Geological Survey, M.S. 999, 345 Middle®eld Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA Lorin J. Amidon** Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755-3571, USA Boyd E. Benson²² GeoEngineers, Inc., 8410 154th Avenue N.E., Redmond, Washington 98052, USA Gudrun Skjerdal§§ Department of Geology, University of Tromsù, N-9073 Tromsù, Norway John A. Shulene## 928 11th Avenue S.W., Puyallup, Washington 98371, USA Futoshi Nanayama*** Active Fault Research Center, National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8567, Japan ABSTRACT turing. (1) Most of the postearthquake de- Had the 1964 Alaska earthquake been re- posits at Portage date from the ®rst decade peated a decade later, the two earthquakes Tides and plants have already restored after the 1964 earthquake. Their thickness would now be recorded by two superposed, much of a landscape that the 1964 Alaska of 23 sites in a 0.5 km2 area was 1.4 6 0.2 buried landscapes near Portage. Much earthquake destroyed. At the head of a ma- m in 1973, 1.6 6 0.2 m in 1991, and 1.6 6 more than a decade is probably needed to crotidal estuary near Anchorage, in the vi- 0.3 m in 1998. (2) Many of the deposits reset similar recorders at mesotidal estu- cinity of Portage, subsidence during the probably date from the ®rst months after aries of the Cascadia subduction zone. earthquake changed meadows, thickets, the earthquake. The deposits contain sedi- and spruce groves into barren tidal ¯ats. mentary couplets in which coarse silt or Keywords: Alaska, earthquakes, estuaries, Tidal-¯at silt and sand soon buried the pre- very ®ne sand is capped by ®ne or medium Holocene, stratigraphy. earthquake landscape while ®lling intertid- silt. About 100 such couplets make up the al space that the subsidence had made. The lowest 0.5 m or more of the postearthquake INTRODUCTION ¯ats supported new meadows and thickets deposits in two outcrops. These couplets by 1973 and new spruce by 1980. Three thicken and thin rhythmically, both as If the same part of a fault produces back- new ®ndings con®rm that the ¯ats aggrad- groups of 5±20 couplets and as pairs of suc- to-back earthquakes, how much time must ed rapidly and that their vegetation is ma- cessive couplets. Probably, the groups of pass between them for each earthquake to thick couplets represent the highest tides, leave a distinct geologic record? For example, *E-mail: Atwater: [email protected]. ²Yamaguchi: [email protected]. the groups of thin couplets represent some where a fault ruptures a previously unbroken §Bondevik: [email protected]. of the lesser high tides, and the pairs record deposit, when will deposits create a new #Barnhardt: [email protected]. inequality between twice-daily high tides. marker for the next rupture? Where a fresh- **Amidon: [email protected]. (3) In the 1980s and 1990s, thickets ex- ened fault scarp sheds colluvium, how quickly ²²Benson: [email protected]. panded and spruce multiplied. The vegeta- will a soil make this deposit distinct from later §§Skjerdal: [email protected]. ##Shulene: [email protected]. tion now resembles the fossil assemblage colluvium? After coseismic uplift raises a ***E-mail: [email protected]. rooted in the buried landscape from 1964. wave-cut platform, how soon will waves cut GSA Bulletin; September 2001; v. 113; no. 9; p. 1193±1204; 12 ®gures; Data Repository item 2001100. For permission to copy, contact [email protected] q 2001 Geological Society of America 1193 ATWATER et al. an update on the maturing postearthquake tectonic subsidence averaged about1mona landscape by describing the distribution and railroad embankment that probably settled age of plants that lived on the aggraded land more than did undeveloped land. in 1998. Finally, we make comparisons with The area lowered into the intertidal zone the probably slower recovery of tidal marshes near Portage contained groves of spruce and and forests at the Cascadia subduction zone. cottonwood, thickets of alder and willow, marshes and bogs, hunting cabins, and a gas SETTING station (Plafker et al., 1969; Ovenshine et al., 1976). Some 18 km2 became unvegetated tidal Tides and Sediment ¯at (Fig. 2, D and E). Portage adjoins the uppermost part of Tur- THICKNESS OF POSTEARTHQUAKE nagain Arm (Fig. 2, B and C), an estuary hav- DEPOSITS ing a huge tidal range, strong tidal currents, and broad tidal ¯ats (Bartsch-Winkler and Newly tidal land near Portage built up Ovenshine, 1984). The estuary's tides at An- quickly in the ®rst decade after the 1964 earth- Figure 1. Earthquake-induced cycle of for- chorage have a mean range of 9 m and a max- quake. By 1973 it had accumulated over 20 est death and renewal at an estuary. Forest imum range close to 11 m. The highest high 000 000 m3 of postearthquake silt and sand, as 1 dies from tidal submergence due to earth- tides, during twice-monthly series of so-called judged from thickness measurements at 301 quake A (Figs. 12A and 4A). Tidal sediment spring tides, are as much as 3 m above the sites in 1973 (Ovenshine et al., 1976). The buries the ¯oor of the dead forest and level of the lowest high tides, which are in the deposit was 1±2 m thick at most of these sites builds land on which forest 2 grows (Fig. 3, intervening series of neap tides. Most days (Fig. 2C). B and C). This next forest eventually dies have two high tides that differ in height by a This accretion dwarfed concurrent land-lev- from effects of earthquake B. Recurrence few tenths of a meter. The highest spring tides el changes from postearthquake uplift. Post- intervals in the vicinity of Portage, Alaska arrive as bores that ascend channels at speeds earthquake uplift amounted to just 0.3 m be- (location shown in Fig. 2), are from Com- of several meters per second. The bores also tween 1964 and 1975 (Brown et al., 1977, p. bellick (1991) and Bartsch-Winkler and traverse tidal ¯ats, which make up nine-tenths 3370)Ðboth at benchmark P 73 in Portage Schmoll (1992). of the estuary upstream (southeast) of (location in Fig. 2F) and at the benchmark on Girdwood. bedrock 3.5 km northwest of town (Fig. 3A). The tidal ¯ats are made of noncohesive Greater uplift between 1964 and 1975 was de- the next platform? Such lags become impor- ®ne-grained sedimentÐchie¯y coarse silt and tected at benchmarks farther northwest, to- tant if they make a paleoseismic record incom- very ®ne sand (Bartsch-Winkler and Ovenshi- ward Anchorage, but none of it exceeded 0.6 plete, for in that case the earthquake hazard is ne, 1984; Bartsch-Winkler, 1988). These de- m (Brown et al., 1977, p. 3370). Similarly, at greater than the geology may imply (Mc- posits contain few burrowing animals and no tide gages in Anchorage and Seward, pos- Calpin and Nelson, 1996, p. 15±17). macroalgal cover. When swept by bores, some tearthquake uplift between 1964 and 1989 did Short recurrence intervals present little dif- of the tidal ¯ats may be scoured to depths of not exceed 0.2 m (locations in Fig. 1B; Savage ®culty for the classic geologic recorder of co- 10 cm or more (A.T. Ovenshine, 1998, written and Plafker, 1991, p. 4330±4331). seismic subsidence (Fig. 1). The setting for commun.). In the 1970s, Ovenshine inferred this recorder is Portage, Alaska, at the head of such erosion by noting, after successive tidal Measurements in 1991 and 1998 a macrotidal estuary along a subduction zone cycles, the exposed length of stakes on a sand (Fig. 2). During the 1964 earthquake, Portage bar near Girdwood. We remeasured the thickness of postearth- and its surroundings subsided into the estu- quake deposits in 1991 and 1998 at nearly two ary's intertidal zone (Plafker, 1969). During Subsidence in 1964 dozen of the sites studied in 1973 (Fig. 3B). the next 15 yr, tidal silt and sand buried the The remeasured sites lie west of Portage, be- subsided landscape while building a new one The March 27, 1964, Alaska earthquake, of tween Twentymile River and Portage Creek capable of recording the next earthquake moment magnitude 9.2 (Kanamori, 1977), (Fig. 2F; Fig. DR11). Most are at or near chan- (Ovenshine et al., 1976; Ovenshine and Ka- caused as much as 2.3 m of tectonic subsi- nel junctions from 1973 that were still rec- chadoorian, 1976; Bartsch-Winkler and Gar- dence in a largely coastal belt 850 km long ognizable in 1991 and 1998, even though the row, 1982; Bartsch-Winkler, 1988). and 150 km wide (Fig. 2B; Plafker, 1969). channels had mostly ®lled. To reoccupy the To these previous ®ndings we add several Seismic shaking locally added to the subsi- junctions, we used the same 1:24 000 black- new ones, to emphasize how soon the Portage dence by causing unconsolidated deposits to and-white aerial photographs, taken in 1973, area became ready to record the 1964 earth- settle (Plafker, 1969; McCulloch and Bonilla, on which Ovenshine et al. (1976) plotted lo- quake's successor. First, using repeated mea- 1970). calities in the ®eld. We also used 1:12 000 col- surements of the thickness of postearthquake In Portage and vicinity (Fig.
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