Notable Earthquake
First suspected from mapping of gravitational anomalies in 1965 and an uplifted marine terrace at Restoration Point (foreground in picture above), the Seattle Fault's existence and likely hazard was definitely established by a set of five reports published in Science in 1992. These reports looked at the timing of abrupt uplift and subsidence around Restoration Point and Alki Point (distant right side of picture), tsunami deposits on Puget Sound, turbidity in lake paleosediments, rock avalanches, and multiple landslides around Lake Washington, and determined that all these happened about 1100 years ago (between A.D. 900–930), and most likely due to an earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater on the Seattle Fault.
Although the A.D. 900–930 earthquake was over a thousand years ago, local native legends have preserved an association of a powerful supernatural spirit – a'yahos, noted for shaking, rushes of water, and landsliding – with five locales along the trace of the Seattle Fault, including a "spirit boulder" near the Fauntleroy ferry dock in West Seattle.
Read more about this topic: Seattle Fault
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