Monday, March 14, 2011

Liquefaction Clip from Chia City, Japan

Kat via a comment provided a great link by Brent Kooi, CNN reporter (thanks Kat). The tsunami clips have dominated the news but there is some other amazing footage. Kat asked if this sort of liquefaction could take place in reclaimed areas of Seattle. There are lots of liquefaction areas in Seattle reclaimed (fill on tide lands) areas as well as many other northwest cities. One of the reasons the Seattle viaduct needs to be replaced HERE. So watch this video and picture the viaduct supported by the soils seen in the video. Also note that at about 30 seconds into the video there is a view of a grass covered area and then a few seconds later another view. In the first view there is no water; in the second view there are puddles of water.

2 comments:

Kat said...

I've watched both videos several times now. I'm now even more assured that my decision to live on a slab of basalt is a good one. I'll make my quick forays to the west to see Josh Ritter or eat some gyros, but then it's back to my rock for me!

Dan McShane said...

Our house is on bedrock too. The Josh Ritter show was at the Showbox. Smack dab on liquefiable soils and right on the Seattle Fault.