PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit off the coast of Bandon, Oregon on Thursday morning.
The USGS said the quake hit at 8:07 a.m. The depth was 12 km. It was originally reported as a 6.4 but later downgraded.
No tsunami was generated. Professor Scott Burns at Portland State University tells KOIN 6 that large quakes are common in that area.
“Good news is it was almost 200 miles off of the coast, so no damage,” he said.
Burns explained that near Coos Bay there is a very large fault called the Blanco Fault.
“It’s an intersection between two plates. And so 200 miles off of the coast of Oregon we have a chain of volcanoes that is creating a plate that is moving in this direction, called the Juan De Fuca plate. And that’s what we always talk about being subducted under North America, at a rate of 4.5 centimeters a year. And so that’s about as fast as your fingernail grows,” he explained.
He said that scientists are still studying the fault zones and can’t say whether or not this is a sign the Big One is coming.
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