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Cascadia Historic Earthquake Catalog, 1793-1929
Covering Washington, Oregon and Southern British Columbia

Provided by: The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
About the Cascadia Historic Earthquake Catalog       One-line catalog format

1793-1849 .... 1850s .... 1860s .... 1870s .... 1880s .... 1890s .... 1900s .... 1910s .... 1920s .... 1930s (not complete) .... Other Cascadia Catalogs

  
Individual Event Report
Event #675 - Summary, and parameter estimates with source IDs                                           
TIME LOCATION MAGNITUDE MAX. INTENSITY FELT AREA
YR MO DAY HR MIN AM/PM Time
Type
LAT(N) LON(W) DEP
(km)
MAG Mag
Type
Felt
Plc.
Felt
St.
Inten-
sity
Int.
Type
Felt
Area
Felt
Area
Int.
Felt
Area
Units
1932                    Pysht  WA           
N-WA - 6040 - - - N-WA - 6040 -

Underlying Source Material
Source ID Publication Pub Date Pub Details
6040  Port Angeles Evening News  1968  Monday, Feb. 19, 1968 
Transcription: (This article is regarding a 1920 EQ)

West End earth cuts still area mystery

There is still the old story about the cowboy who, many years ago, came unexpectedly to the rim of the Grand Canyon, took one look and exclaimed: "Boy something must have happened here!"

There's a little of that same feeling when you walk 50 or so feet into the woods from the Eagle Point road west of Sekiu and come upon a sudden, sharp gash in the earth running several hundred yards north to the Strait.

It's no grand canyon, but neither is it just a happenstance of soil erosion or a gully cut by run-off.

Something surely happened there.

John Cowan, current head of a pioneer family in the area, and his mother, Mrs. Helma Cowan, claim it's the result of an earthquake which struck the area about 1920 to1922.

Mrs. Cowan, who came to the area as a child 75 years ago, says the quake to which the gash is attributed occurred a year or so after her family took up residence in 1919 on the farm she and her son now operate on the Lake Ozette road.

A CHECK ON SEISMOLOGY records at the University of Washington reveals no record of a quake in those years.

Norm Rasmussen, seismologist at the university, says a check list shows only two quakes in the general area of the Eagle Point gash. One on Feb. 6, 1896, had an intensity of 6, a strong shock, and was pinpointed somewhere just west of Cape Flattery. Another on Jan. 6., 1932, a very weak shock, occurred near Pysht.

The Eagle Point crevice cut abruptly in to the forest floor, gives no warning of its presence until you stand on it very rim, It measures approximately 15-20 feet in width and plunges straight down between its split rock walls 35, 40 or more feet.

IT'S UPPER EXTREMITY ends at the Eagle Point road. Presumably an extension of the gash was filled in for road construction. Its lower end stops in shore of the railroad line along the Strait but presumably extended into the waters of the Strait before construction of the railroad.

Cowan says there is a legend that the crevice plunges deep under the waters of the Strait at the point and the soundings have indicated a bottomless crevasse.

A FEW SHORT CLEAVAGES in the earth's surface roughly parallel sections of the main gash, indicating the convulsive nature of whatever caused the phenomena.

Chunks of rock have fallen from the walls of the gash into its depths, fallen trees and the detritus of the forest are adding to the fill but the crevice still testifies to the fact that "something happened here."
 


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