It is time for some additional "food for thought." There is something in the post for Saturday, September 10, 2016 which needs some further consideration.
The post from Saturday looked at two massive earthquakes which occurred in western North America in 1872. The earlier quake occurred in California and the latter occurred in the state of Washington. But, the main focus of the post was on the Lone Pine (Owens Valley), California earthquake. There is one particular item found in the information which may be of more value than is commonly realized. Possibly this item of information can help shed further light on what is actually being dealt with, geologically, in Cascadia and the western regions of North America.
In the September 10 post, it is noted that during the 1872 earthquake, the ground in Owens Valley quickly sunk more than 20 feet in places. This is an important piece of information in itself. But, there is something else relating to this event which will actually be examined further. On the second page of some transcribed news articles from 1872 (access which is gained via this link) are found the following words: "Indians in the vicinity [of Owens Valley] have all left, fearing a recurrence of a general convulsion of nature, which according to tradition, occurred there some hundred years ago, and created what is now known as Owen's River Valley, but what was before a chain of mountains."
Let us look at this piece of information more closely. The Indians were "fearing a recurrence of a general convulsion of nature..." What was this general convulsion of nature all about? How big of an area was affected by it? What all was connected to, or associated with, this "general convulsion of nature," which was earlier experienced by the Indians of the newly formed Owens Valley region? Furthermore, there is the time frame to consider.
According to the 1872 account, this convulsion of nature which was instrumental in rapidly forming the Owen's River Valley in a mountainous region was experienced by the Indians "some hundred years ago." This somewhat vague and loose terminology appears to place the major event -- that "general convulsion of nature" -- somewhere roughly in the direction of the year 1772, but very likely, less than 200 years prior to 1872. So, let us now consider this event in the light of some additional geology.
Near the bottom of the September 10 post is information from a page titled Siting of Large Volcanic Centers at Releasing Fault Stepovers, Walker Lane Rift, which is linked here. Let us note information which is found on PDF page 15 of 54. It declares how "the northern Walker Lane increasingly interacted with the Cascade subduction zone to produce transtensional environments favorable to the development of major volcanic centers." The Walker Lane "is a geologic trough" which includes the Owens Valley (link). This geologic trough is a zone which is initiating continental rifting (link), or the general pulling apart of the coastal region of North America, and it appears to be linked to Cascadia.
Let us now return to the earlier "convulsion of nature," which the Indians of the Owens Valley region spoke about. At this point, let us consider who was actually inhabiting California at the time when the "general convulsion of nature" took place. A webpage about California history is linked here. From information on that page, it is clear that in 1542, a Spanish voyage explored Upper California (or Alta California). This is the area we now call the state of California. In 1579, the English landed north of San Francisco. But, there is no mention of European colonization at this point.
The California history page, linked above, together with information on a page linked here, notes that in 1767, a Spanish explorer named Gaspar de Portola was sent to America. It appears that he initially resided in Mexico, but held the title of Governor of the Californias. The linked information indicates that it was not until 1769 that Portola finally commanded an expedition northward out of Mexico. This expedition ultimately established "a colony at Monterey Bay," in what is now the state of California.
From information which is commonly available, there does not appear to be any European mention of a "general convulsion of nature" in western North America at the time of, or near the time of, the colonization of the California region in the latter 1700s. According to the only information which appears to be available about this "general convulsion of nature," which is an oral Indian tradition, the "convulsion of nature" appears to have taken place somewhere in the 1700s. Since there appears to have been no Europeans present to actually document this geologic event for their ancestors, possibly it is time for us to seriously consider the potential implications of this oral tradition kept by the Indians.
Once again, from information noted earlier in this post, there appears to be a geologic connection between the geologic trough of Walker Lane (which contains the Owens Valley) and the Cascadia region. At this point, there are some questions which can potentially make some very good "food for thought." Is there a remote chance that the "general convulsion of nature," which created the Owens Valley, could have occurred somewhere around the time of the massive Cascadia earthquake in 1700? Could these two events somehow have been related or interconnected? Is there a chance that this "general convulsion of nature" could have actually covered quite a large area of western North America, especially in those areas now called California, Oregon and Washington?
In closing, there are some further things to consider. Regarding the information presented in this post, how may it apply to the Cascadia megaquake which is said to be coming? If the tsunami which slammed into Japan in January of 1700 was initiated by a coastal shaking of North America which mimicked roughly an offshore M9.0 earthquake, what might this imply? If the quake of 1700 was actually centered relatively far inland, somewhere near the Sierra Nevada or the Cascade Mountains, what may have been its actual maximum magnitude? Could rifting and the sinking of land in the Walker Lane of California, possibly in the 1700s, give us any hint? Yes, just some food for thought.
For further reading:
Current Expectations for a Cascadia Mega-Quake
https://cascadian.neocities.org/cascadiaquake.htm
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