(Newport, Oregon) – Scientists at Hatfield Marine Science Center on the central Oregon Coast and Washington State recently made a discovery about the 1,700 tsunami-struck trees in the area. When working with annual rings in trees from the 17th century, the researchers found that the great flood slowed tree growth. (Photo courtesy Hatfield Marine Science Center)
Core samples were taken from a stand of old Douglas fir in the South Beach area of Newport, approximately one mile inland from the ocean. The discovery also confirms what scientists thought about the range of the January 1700 quake that struck off the Cascadia subduction zone – the last to do so.
The project was led by Robert Dziak, a scientist at the Hatfield Marine Science Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
Dziak said the event had a significant impact on tree growth that year. Dziak’s team also examined and compared other old trees outside the tsunami zone, and they found that they were growing at normal rates.
Scientists still don’t know exactly why this was so detrimental to the trees, but working theories include the fact that the ground shook so strongly during the earthquake and the strong presence of seawater surrounded it.
« The salty seawater from a tsunami usually drains away pretty quickly, but there is one area of the pond in Mike Miller Park where the seawater has likely settled and stayed for a long time, » said Dziak.
Those little things about how tsunamis worked and affected the areas are important in figuring out the bigger picture along the Oregon and Washington coast, he said.
« It helps us understand what to expect when the next ‘big one’ arrives, » said Dziak.
See also explanations about Neskowin Ghost Forest Wrong, Say Oregon Coast Geologists
Finding such trees turned out to be a great challenge: Dziak and the team were surprised to discover some at all, let alone a stand of trees that had not yet been felled . They managed to work with nearly 40 Douglas firs and used a technique that did not interfere with their future growth or harm them altogether.
The next step is to do an isotope analysis of the wood from 1700 and then compare it to the 2011 tsunami-flooded wood in Japan. According to Bryan Black of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, Tucson, this could allow researchers to create a prehistoric map of tsunami zones along the Oregon coast.
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