seismic upgrades

How prepared is SFU for the “Big One?”

By: Corbett Gildersleve, News Writer The “Big One,” an earthquake “as powerful as magnitude 9.0” on the Richter scale, has been predicted to occur on the Pacific Coast and impact Metro Vancouver in the next 50–100 years. The Peak looked into what this means for SFU’s Burnaby, Surrey, and Vancouver campuses.  Due to plate tectonics, an earthquake this big would come from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 1,000 km “megathrust” fault that runs from northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, California. According to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, this fault is where the Pacific’s Juan de Fuca plate slides under…

Continue reading