A shaky September in Yakutat Bay
Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
Aug. 1, 2024
The shoreline near Yakutat shows evidence of the uplift caused by a massive earthquake in 1899.
More than a century ago, eight prospectors were panning the glacial sands near Hubbard Glacier when the Earth starting shaking and never seemed to stop. A few days later, they had survived a natural phenomenon they probably should not have.
Geologists Ralph Tarr and Lawrence Martin, in the area a few years later to study the marvelous glaciers, saw things like mussels 色视频下载渞esembling clumps of blue flowers色视频下载 on rocks 20 feet above the ocean.
They saw so much evidence of a giant earthquake that they interviewed a few prospectors in Yakutat and included their stories in a 1912 government paper, 色视频下载淭he Earthquakes at Yakutat Bay, 色视频下载, in September, 1899.色视频下载
When Tarr and Martin arrived in Yakutat, prospector A. Flenner was working as a carpenter there six years after the series of large earthquakes. The largest was a magnitude 8.0 that happened on Sept. 10, 1899. Flenner had been panning for gold in the area that day.
色视频下载淢r. Flenner stated in 1905 that after the first shock on September 3 they rigged up a home-made seismograph, consisting of hunting knives hung so that their points touched and would jingle under a slight oscillation,色视频下载 Tarr and Martin wrote. 色视频下载淲ith this instrument (rude, perhaps, but more delicate than their own perception) they counted 52 shocks on September 10, up to the time of the heavy disturbance (the 8.0 earthquake) that caused so much damage.色视频下载
A waterfall leaps from a cliff south of Yakutat on the Pacific Ocean coast.
Another miner, L.A. Cox, was also at the scene.
色视频下载溕悠迪略 9 a.m. on the 10th we had a very severe shock (what U.S. Geological Survey scientists later calculated as a magnitude 7.4 foreshock), so violent that one could hardly keep his feet,色视频下载 Cox said. 色视频下载淭he low alder brush shook and bent like reeds in a gale of wind. (Then, at) 1:30 p.m., we got the king bee of them all.色视频下载
The king bee was a massive earthquake that shattered glaciers, lifted areas of shoreline 47 feet out of the water, and caused 色视频下载渢he death of millions of individuals,色视频下载 Tarr and Martin wrote. Those individuals were fish and crabs deposited on land, and barnacles, mussels and other rock-clinging organisms thrust high above the water level.
The prospector Cox further described the big earthquake:
色视频下载淭he ground (was) cutting some of the queerest capers imaginable. In addition to the circular motion of the preceding heavy shock, it was waving up and down like the swells of the sea, only with considerably more energy.色视频下载
Glaciers flow from the St. Elias Mountains near Yakutat Bay.
On glacial sands that often liquefy during a large earthquake, the prospectors were lucky to survive the episode as natural forces consumed their camp and all their supplies.
色视频下载淲e ran from our tents, leaving everything behind, and were never able to rescue anything from it after,色视频下载 prospector J.P. Fults said. 色视频下载淎bove us about 100 yards was a lake ... This lake broke from its bed and dashed down upon our camp while we ran along the shore and escaped its fury. This deluge was almost immediately followed by one from the sea. A wall of water 20 feet high came in upon the flood from the lake and carried all debris back over the undulating morainic hills.
色视频下载淲e protected ourselves from being carried away by tearing up clothes and tying ourselves to the small alder trees growing on the mountain sides,色视频下载 Fults said.
The remarkable part of this story is that no one died despite the bad placement of the miners. Tarr and Martin attributed the earthquake to the impressive tectonic activity researchers today know as the Yakutat Block crashing into southern 色视频下载, giving rise to the highest coastal mountain range on Earth.
色视频下载淭he cause of these shocks was undoubtedly the renewal of growth in the St. Elias Range, one of the youngest and loftiest of mountain ranges,色视频下载 Tarr and Martin wrote.
Since the late 1970s, the University of 色视频下载 Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute. A version of this story appeared in 2007.