About Is the Pacific Northwest Ready for the Big One? Pacific Northwest Past & Future Earthquakes
Presented by: Scott Burns, Professor of Geology, Portland State
University
In the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the Juan de Fuca
plate is being subducted under the North American Plate at the Cascadia
Subduction Zone. This presentation will discuss the hazards of and the
preparedness for ground shaking, liquefaction, landslides and tsunamis along
the subduction zone. What are the differences of recurrence intervals for
large earthquakes on the northern and southern margins? Much of the
region was not thought to be an earthquake region, so earthquake-building
standards are fairly recent. How does the chance of crustal, plate and
subduction quakes affect building codes, emergency preparedness, siting of
critical facilities, building of bridges, and transportation corridors in the
region? What have we learned from recent subduction quakes around the
world that can be applied to the Pacific Northwest? What can the region
expect after a large quake?
About the Speaker:
Scott is a Professor Emeritus of Geology and Past-Chair of the
Dept. of Geology at Portland State University where he just finished his 27th
year of teaching. He was also Associate Dean of the College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences at P.S.U. from 1997-1999. He has been teaching for 47
years, with past positions in Switzerland, New Zealand, Washington, Colorado
and Louisiana. He is a 6th generation Oregonian who grew up in Beaverton
and is very happy to be "home" after a 25 year hiatus!
Scott specializes in environmental and engineering geology,
geomorphology, soils, and Quaternary geology. In Oregon, he has projects
involving landslides and land use, environmental cleanup of service stations,
slope stability, earthquake hazard mapping, Missoula Floods, paleo sols,
loess soil stratigraphy, radon generation from soils, the distribution of
heavy metals and trace elements in Oregon soils, alpine soil development,
and the terroir of wine. He has been active in mapping landslides in the
Pacific Northwest since his return to Portland.
Scott has won many awards for outstanding teaching with the most
significant being the Faculty Senate Chair Award at Louisiana Tech University
in 1987, the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Portland State Alumni
Association in 2001, and the George Hoffmann Award from PSU in 2007. He
has authored over 100 publications and has had over 25 research grants.
His first book, Environmental, Groundwater and Engineering Geology:
Applications from Oregon, came out January of 1998. His second book, Cataclysms
on the Columbia, the Great Missoula Floods came out in October of 2009 and is
co-authored by Marjorie Burns, a friend and professor at PSU. Scott has
been the president of the Faculty Senate at three different universities:
Louisiana Tech University and the American College of Switzerland and Portland
State University. He actively helps local TV and radio stations and
newspapers bring important geological news to the public. For the past 47 years
he has been studying wine and terroir – the relationship between wine, soils,
geology and climate.
His BS and MS degrees are from Stanford University in California,
plus a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is
has memberships in over 20 professional organizations and is most active
in the Association of Engineering Geologists, Geological Society of America,
National Association of Geology Teachers, and the Soil Science Society of
America. He is past president of the Oregon Society of Soil Scientists
and the Oregon Section of the Association of Engineering Geologists. He
was national chair of the engineering geology division of the Geological
Society of America (GSA) in 1999-2000. . He was national president of the
Association of Engineering Geologists from 2002-2003. He is today president of
the International Association of Engineering Geologists. He was chosen a
fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2004. Scott was chosen a
fellow with the Kellogg National Fellowship Program from 1990 - 1993 based on his
national leadership performance.
