West Coast Earthquakes Have Scientists Interested Because it Has a Connection With the Big Cascadia

[Elderberry]

By Strange Sounds -Dec 3, 2019

Recent West Coast Earthquakes Have Scientists Very Interested Because it Has a Connection With the Big Cascadia Earthquake

The Pacific Northwest is rumbling. You just might not know it.

A M4.5 quake between Port Orford and Coos Bay, Oregon has scientists very interested because it has a connection to the big Cascadia earthquake forecast for our future.

On Sunday at 12:31 p.m., a M3.4 earthquake rattled south of Mount Rainier, jolting a seismic region near Goat Rocks, which produced a damaging 5.5 earthquake back in 1981.

Three minutes later, a M4.1 quake struck off the coast Washington’s most northwest corner and is most probably connected with offshore plate movement.

Those Weren’t The Only Quakes

A list of the recent earthquakes can be found here.

The earthquake getting the most attention from scientists struck around 5:45 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 29.

The quake is intriguing for its magnitude and location. It registered at M4.5 and struck southwest of Coos Bay in Port Orford, which is near the Oregon coast and the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

The 4.5 quake was strong enough to set off the new ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system, telling people as far away as Grants Pass that shaking might be coming.

All these quakes are interconnected somehow and are a fresh reminder of how seismically-active the Pacific Northwest is and will remain.

More: https://strangesounds.org/2019/12/recent-pacific-northwest-earthquake-cascadia-link.html

[Elderberry]

Abnormal methane emission concentrations detected at the northern edge of the Cascadia subduction zone

Earth Chronicles by space · December 2, 2019

https://earth-chronicles.com/natural-catastrophe/abnormal-methane-emission-concentrations-detected-at-the-northern-edge-of-the-cascadia-subduction-zone.html

Off the coast of Washington, pillars of bubbles rise from the bottom of the sea, as if a dragon were sleeping there. But these bubbles are methane, which is squeezed out of the sediment and rises up through the water. The places where they appear provide important clues to what will happen during a major marine earthquake.

The first large-scale analysis of these gas emissions along the Washington coast reveals more than 1,700 bubble plumes, mainly grouped in a north-south strip about 30 miles (50 kilometers) offshore.

Scientists discovered the first methane emissions on the outskirts of Washington in 2009 and thought they were lucky to find them at that time. But since then this number has only grown exponentially.

The results show that gas and liquid rise through faults generated by the movement of geological plates that produce large marine earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest.

More at link.

[Smokin Joe]

Abnormal methane emission concentrations detected at the northern edge of the Cascadia subduction zone

Earth Chronicles by space · December 2, 2019

https://earth-chronicles.com/natural-catastrophe/abnormal-methane-emission-concentrations-detected-at-the-northern-edge-of-the-cascadia-subduction-zone.html

Off the coast of Washington, pillars of bubbles rise from the bottom of the sea, as if a dragon were sleeping there. But these bubbles are methane, which is squeezed out of the sediment and rises up through the water. The places where they appear provide important clues to what will happen during a major marine earthquake.

The first large-scale analysis of these gas emissions along the Washington coast reveals more than 1,700 bubble plumes, mainly grouped in a north-south strip about 30 miles (50 kilometers) offshore.

Scientists discovered the first methane emissions on the outskirts of Washington in 2009 and thought they were lucky to find them at that time. But since then this number has only grown exponentially.

The results show that gas and liquid rise through faults generated by the movement of geological plates that produce large marine earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest.

More at link.

Interesting, but not surprising. THese plumes would likely be methane from sediments along new fractures/fault lines to the seafloor.
From my days of running Mass Spec on wellsite, helium also travels through fault systems, and can be used to identify faults and interconnected fractures, even in very small quantities.