Oregon Public Broadcasting

A two-hundred-mile earthquake fault off the Oregon coast is very active and could help inform future earthquake research. Oregon State University researchers just published a new study, as Ethan Lindsey reports.

The Blanco Transform Fault Zone produced 1500 moderately-powerful earthquakes during the past 40 years.

The analysis was released in the latest Journal of Geophysical Research.

The Blanco fault runs diagonal from 100 miles off the southern Oregon coast, near Bandon, to 300 miles off the coast of Newport.

John Nabelek is an Oregon State professor and an author of the study.

Nabelek says the fault actually reminds him of the deadly San Andreas fault in California.

John Nabelek: “This fault should not pose much of a danger because being 100 miles away, the shaking at that distance is quite reduced by the time it comes to the shore. But it definitely will be felt if there is a large earthquake occurring there.”

Nabelek says further research will look at why he's detected more earthquake activity on the Oregon side on the fault line than on the Pacific Ocean side.