Special Issue: the Cascadia Subduction Zone

2023-09-25

The Cascadia Subduction Zone: Grand Challenges and Research Frontiers

Subduction zones generate the world’s largest earthquakes. Their strong shaking and related cascading hazards such as tsunamis, landslides, liquefaction, fire, etc., make them the source of some of the most devastating natural hazards. The Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), spanning three states in the U.S. and British Columbia in Canada, is such a hazardous system and at the same time represents one of the world’s best natural earthquake laboratories. While the Cascadia megathrust is seismically quiet compared to many other subduction zones, fundamental discoveries on phenomena including slow slip and tremor have shown it to be a hub of tectonic activity. Moreover, the region hosts one of the most comprehensive geologic records of past great earthquakes. Research involving the CSZ has yielded some of the most intriguing recent advances in the physics and impacts of earthquakes, and, fresh ideas and future scientific endeavors are required to foster and accelerate this progress.

Despite significant advances in our understanding of the CSZ system, grand challenges remain. Seismica is announcing a special journal issue focused on the CSZ. We invite submissions on any aspect of this system in key locations or in its entirety and we are particularly interested in contributions that address the following general topics as they pertain to the CSZ and studies that try to bridge the gaps between them:

  • System-level links between convergent tectonics and earthquake hazard
  • Accumulation and release of elastic strain throughout the earthquake cycle
  • Temporal and spatial variability of the earthquake record
  • Characteristics and controls of dynamic megathrust ruptures
  • Drivers of intra-plate faults and earthquakes and their associated hazards
  • Unique characteristics of strong ground motion in Cascadia
  • Tsunamigenic sources and the controls of inundation

Guest Editorial Board

  • Brendan Crowell (University of Washington) - Geodesy
  • Colin Amos (Western Washington University) - Tectonics and earthquake geology
  • Isabel Hong (Villanova) - Paleoseismology
  • Pieter-Ewald Share (Oregon State University) - High-resolution geophysical structural imaging
  • Emilie Hooft (University of Oregon) - Shoreline crossing seismics
  • Harold Tobin (University of Washington) - Marine geology, fluids, faults

Production editor

Alice Gabriel (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD; LMU Munich)

Submission:

All submissions will be accepted for this special issue until December 2024. All Seismica article types can be submitted to this issue. The number of figures for Fast Reports may not be limited to three for the special issue, but manuscripts are still expected to be short and concise.

To submit to this Special Issue, please select “Special Issue: the Cascadia Subduction Zone” in the dropdown "Section" box on the submission page. For your submission to be considered a Fast Report, please note this in the "Comments to the Editor" free-text box.

Questions? Please contact Alice Gabriel (Production Editor) at algabriel[at]ucsd.edu