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A team of scientists is reportedly working to obtain the sharpest pictures ever taken of the Cascadia subduction zone – a fault line that runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. The subduction zone, which has been the site of some of North America's largest earthquakes and the Earth's past "megathrust" earthquakes, has been strangely quiet, with almost no seismic activity detected. To investigate Cascadia's Oregon and British Columbia portion and the reason for this lull, Columbia University led a team of researchers – including students – from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics,...

Danger lurks below in Oregon The state faces the likelihood of a major earthquake that would kill thousands and cause billions of dollars in damage -- and we're not ready for it. A hurricane as destructive as Katrina striking Oregon is about as likely as a rain-free winter in the Northwest. Oregon hasn't been hit by a hurricane even close to that powerful in recorded history. But that doesn't mean the state is immune to disaster. Scientists warn that the 800-mile-long earthquake fault off the state's coast will shake the ground as far east as the Cascades -- hard enough...

Asia primed for next big quake 18:00 16 March 2005 NewScientist.com news service Katharine Davis Indonesia and Germany signed an agreement this week to install a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean. Though some of the pieces will be in place by October, it could turn out to be a race against time. The quake that caused last year's devastating tsunami has increased the stress on other faults nearby, according to a study published this week. This has left the region primed for one or two major earthquakes, and possibly another tsunami. The earthquake on 26 December, 2004,...