Paleoseismic history of the Cascadia Subduction Zone: technician support for completion of September 2017 field work

Dr. Dallimore received an Internal Grant for Research for a research project exploring the Cascadia Subduction Zone, thorough surveys, to accurately interpret earthquakes along the coast.

In 2012, in order to regionally extend the paleoseismic west coast Vancouver Island inlets work from our main study site at Effingham Inlet, southern Vancouver Island, to the northern terminus of the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) , Royal Roads University (RRU) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) collaboratively undertook an Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Ship Time grant funded coring cruise on the CCGS Vector to every inlet along western Vancouver Island. We raised ten piston cores of marine sediments, which collectively represent a sedimentary record of the full Canadian portion of the CSZ, and in places gives a record of major earthquakes going back about 8,000 years. In Sept. 2016, with the support of the IGR16-08 grant, we took the RRU research boat, to one of these core sites in Clayoquot Sound, to perform site specific characterization including nearshore multi-beam imagery, sub-bottom profiling and oceanographic water property surveys. This work is required to accurately interpret the return rate of M8-9 CSZ earthquakes along the BC coast, from our sediment records. This new grant would support the salary of RRU Research Assistant Byron Molloy, for a second trip with the RRU boat to Clayoquot Sound, to do site specific characterization of a second important core site from the 2012 cruise.