Scientists Warn Dormant Canadian Fault Line Could Trigger Major Earthquake

Scientists have warned that a fault line in Canada that has been lying dormant for years is showing signs of seismic activity and can trigger a massive earthquake. A study conducted by the University of Victoria (UVic) states that this threat lies in northwestern Canada’s Yukon Territory. The Tintina fault stretches around 1,000 kilometres and cuts northwest. It has been believed to be quiet for over 40 million years. But researchers from the university say that a 130-kilometre portion of the fault near Dawson City likely witnessed a huge earthquake during the Quaternary Period, SciTech Daily reported. This spans from 2.6 million years ago to the present. They added that the fault line has also shifted sideways by a total of 450 kilometres during its entire lifetime. This was deduced after studying imagery taken by satellites, aircraft, and drones. Scientists believe that the fault line has been deceiving humans till now and holds the potential to trigger big earthquakes in the future. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Theron Finley, recent UVic PhD graduate and lead author of the article, says that they knew a few small earthquakes of magnitude 3 to 4 were detected along the Tintina fault in the past decades. However, there was nothing to suggest that it could cause major earthquakes. They decided to reexamine the fault line to see if that was still possible. \"The expanding availability of high-resolution data prompted us to re-examine the fault, looking for evidence of prehistoric earthquakes in the landscape,\" he said. The way scientists learn about the chances of earthquakes in Canada is by looking at historical earthquake records, including Indigenous oral histories, archived documents, and readings from modern seismic networks. But these records are only a few hundred years old, while most faultlines can remain quiet for thousands of years. This meant that the Tintina fault could also be deceiving us.

A feature called \"fault scarps\" passing within 20 km of Dawson City gave away the secret of Tintina. Fault scarps are linear features that are formed due to either large or shallow earthquakes because of the rupturing of the Earth’s surface. The researchers examined these scarps, which can stay in place for thousands of years. They run hundreds of kilometres long but are only a few metres wide. The study authors used \"high-resolution topographic data from the ArcticDEM dataset from satellite images, as well as from light detection and ranging (lidar) surveys conducted with aeroplanes and drones\" in the forested regions of Canada and detected a series of fault scarps in the area.