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A century and a half elapsed before anyone had any inkling that the Pacific Northwest was not a quiet place but a place in a long period of quiet. A fine words
by johnohara 8y ago
A century and a half elapsed before anyone had any inkling that the Pacific Northwest was not a quiet place but a place in a long period of quiet.
A fine wordsmith paints images of understanding.
- martinpw 8y agoAlso: The Cascadia subduction zone remained hidden from us for so long because we could not see deep enough into the past. It poses a danger to us today because we have not thought deeply enough about the future.
- mirimir 8y agoYes, this is among the finest popular geology articles that I've ever read. Also, the really cool thing is that it's part of Native American oral histories. But that's only a few hundred years ago. There are also stories about the eruption that created Crater Lake, ~7700 years ago. That is impressive.
- 3x 8y agoIt's a common complaint on HN that too many articles include irrelevant details about the people and scenery of technical fields, but this article really pulls it off perfectly. It is dense in technical information and the personal stories complement this information and make it more memorable (e.g. I didn't know that the duration of an earthquake is a rough proxy for its magnitude, but I won't forget after reading the narration in the opening paragraphs).