Oregon Expert Predicts Massive Offshore Earthquake in 30-50 Years

If you've seen the trailers for the new Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson movie "San Andreas,"  you might want to pay at least a little attention.

Ok, the movie is full of CG (computer generated) effects, but some of the stuff is loosely based upon what could actually happen if the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Oregon-California coast actually suffers an earthquake.

This week, an Oregon State Professor known in the science world as "Dr Doom" has predicted a massive 9.0 earthquake will strike somewhere along the Zone in the next 30-50 years.

Dr. Doom is Oregon State University researcher Dr. Bob Yeats, and he's called that because of his uncanny ability to predict some major quakes.  In books and literature he has had published, he not only foreshadowed the devastating Haiti quakes a few years before they happened, he also predicted the Nepal event that just happened.

Yeats studies geological and earthquake faults, quake activity, and he believes the Zone will suffer a large one. The Zone is a major fault that lies about 60 miles off the coast, it runs for about 600 miles alongside California and Oregon.

Yeats was part of a team of researchers who recently predicted activity on the zone during a Northwest earthquake disaster and symposium.

A 9.0 quake would produce not only severe onshore damage, but a tidal or tsunami wave not that different than the one seen in the upcoming San Andreas movie.

Yeats says his purpose is to warn people and make sure they're ready in the event of any environmental or geological disaster.