From USA Today
By William M. Welch, Dan Vergano and Chris Hawley, USA TODAY
One of the really "Big Ones" to shake the United States was a magnitude-9.0 earthquake along the Pacific Northwest coast more than 300 years ago, before the arrival of huge numbers of people and development, that sent a catastrophic tsunami to Japan.
Were something like that 1700 quake to occur today — and it certainly could, seismologists say — enormous destruction and loss of life would result in a region that is home now to big cities and millions of people.
The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked Chile and sent tsunami fears across the Pacific on Saturday — nearly seven weeks after the enormously deadly quake that destroyed parts of Haiti— serves as a vivid reminder of the perils posed to the United States by countless fault lines and shifting plates.
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