Alaska Earthquake Triggers Tsunami Scare In Washington

SEATTLE, WA - A tsunami scare overnight caused terror in Washington and up and down the West Coast after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in the Gulf of Alaska. The National Weather Service issued a tsunami watch at around 1:30 a.m. that included areas in Puget Sound as far south as Whidbey Island.

The tsunami watch was canceled around 4:15 a.m. The watch was also in effect for the California coast all the way to the Mexican border. The Alaskan and Canadian coasts were under a warning, but were only hit with "a small tsunami," according to NWS Portland.

The quake in Alaska might trigger fears of a megaquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Seismologists have no way of predicting earthquakes, but this morning's quake in Alaska was much different than a Cascadia megaquake. The Alaska quake happened in a strike-slip zone, which is where the Earth's crust rubs together horizontally.

Cascadia is a megathrust zone where the Juan de Fuca plate is sliding underneath the North American plate. A megathrust quake happens when those two plates unlock and push apart from each other.

Follow updates on the watch at tsunami.gov. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Seattle Patch, click here to find your local Washington Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Image via National Weather Service