Next subduction quake will rock our world

A little perspective: In 1869 bearded men in tall black hats whacked in a golden spike completing the Transcontinental Railway at Provo, Utah, establishing the first sit-down transportation between the East Coast and San Francisco. In January of the following year a magnitude 9 earthquake set off a flood that drowned Native coastal villages from mid California to the northern tip of Vancouveer Island. In short, it was a whopper; but almost completely unrecognized for over 100 years.

In January 1700, the offshore portion of that fault fractured along 700 miles from northern Vancouver Island to...