by John Clague
Emeritus Professor at Simon Fraser University
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Summary:
The south coast of BC is earthquake-prone, and some types of these earthquakes are tsunami ‘spawners’. The geologic record, however, indicates that the 3 million of us living around the Strait of Georgia are in a ‘sweet spot’ tsunami-wise.
Put differently, the likelihood of a disastrous tsunami in the Strait of Georgia, that is a tsunami comparable to those that have struck Japan, Chile, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand in this century, is extremely unlikely. I will argue that we collectively tend to over-exaggerate that hazard.
BIO:
John Clague is Emeritus Professor at Simon Fraser University. He was educated at Occidental College (BA), the University of California Berkeley (MA), and the University of British Columbia (PhD). Clague worked as a Research Scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada from 1975 until 1998. In 1998 he accepted a faculty position in Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University, which he held until 2016. He currently is busy running a small engineering geology consultancy. Clague is a Quaternary geologist with research specializations in glacial geology, geomorphology, natural hazards, and climate change. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2020 was inducted as an Officer into the Order of Canada. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Natural Hazards.
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