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SEATTLE – Scientists have discovered something unusual on the seafloor miles off the Oregon coast to better help them understand potent earthquake zones. The findings happened along the Cascadia Subduction Zone – a fault line stretching 600 miles from Canada‘s Vancouver Island to California. The fault is known for producing massive quakes every several hundred years that rate as high as magnitude 9.0. 
The last major quake to strike the fault was on Jan. 27, 1700, and scientists determined entire forests died across hundreds of miles when the coasts of what are today Washington, Oregon and northern California suddenly dropped 4–6 feet, flooding the coastline with seawater amid an incredible tsunami.
Bubbling discovery along Cascadia Fault gives insight into area prone to 9.0 killer quakes in West

Bubbling discovery along Cascadia Fault gives insight into area prone to 9.0 killer quakes in West© University of Washington

9.0 QUAKE ROCKED THE PACIFIC COAST 323 YEARS AGO AND SENT AN ‘ORPHAN TSUNAMI’ TO JAPAN

Recently, researchers at the University of Washington found warm liquid bubbling up from the seafloor about 50 miles from Newport, Oregon.  Observations suggest the spring is sourced from water 2.5 miles beneath the seafloor at the plate boundary, regulating stress on the offshore fault.

Scientists say the discovery gives them a better idea of how tectonic plates lock into place between large earthquakes.

“They’re like messengers from the deep,” Evan Solomon, UW associate professor of oceanography, told FOX Weather. “They’re providing us a pretty well intact and pristine sample of what the fluids are like in the plate boundary at these depths.”

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