Why Aren't We Afraid Of A Tsunami Hitting San Francisco?
Watch Out For Tsunami! Wikimedia CommonsWhen a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's eastern coast early Friday morning, we all feared a tsunami. But San Francisco gets earthquakes all the time, and we're not scared of a tsunami there. Why? When news broke of a 7.3-magnitude earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan early this morning, our first reaction was to fear a tsunami. The devastating earthquake that hit Japan last March and left 15,000 dead was in large part so damaging because of the ensuing tsunami, massive waves of ocean water which crashed up to six miles inland and over a hundred feet high. Luckily, Japan today's earthquake and its aftershocks seem to have minimal adverse effect, and the waves are not high enough to be damaging. But it got us wondering. The San Francisco Bay Area, perhaps the most famous earthquake zone in the continental United States, is hit by...