A geological fault overlooked in the remote north of Canada may be able to produce a massive earthquake, according to new research.
Tintina’s guilt, which extends around 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from British Columbia to Alaska, once thought it was inactive for at least 40 million years. Now scientists say they have a history of great ruptures in the last 2.6 million years and could do it again.
The study, led by researchers from the University of Victoria (UVIC) identified a section of 81 mile faults (130 km) near the city of Dawson, where multiple past have left their mark on the landscape. The equipment used high -resolution topographic data of satellites, airplanes and drones to detect fault scales, narrow ridges formed when the ground changes the duration of an earthquake, which were previously hidden under dense deposits forests and glacial.
“Lidar and Satellite data are incredible to this type of work, and have revolutionized the field of paleosemology,” said Principal Author Theron Finley to Space.com in an email. “There are many other cases in Canada and beyond where previously not recognized failures have discovered the legs thanks to this technology.”
Evidence of ancient and powerful earthquakes
By measuring how far the scientists have moved, the scientists rebuilt the recent activity of the failure. The glacial characteristics of 2.6 million years have changed side by approximately 0.62 miles (1 km), while the characteristics of 132000 years are compensated with 246 feet (75 meters). The significant characteristics of only 12,000 years do not show displacement at all.
This long and quiet period is not necessarily good news. Based on tectonic deformation rates of approximately 0.008 to 0.03 inches (0.2 to 0.8 millimeters) per year, researchers estimate that the failure has accumulated approximately 20 feet (6 meters) or slip deficit from the last important earthquake.
“They thought that our observations indicate a substantial sliding deficit, we still do not have a good sense of the frequency with which large ruptures occur in the dye failure,” said Finley. “At this point, we really can’t say if it is likely that another rupture is in the short term or in thousands of years.”
To obtain a better understanding or how often great Earthquakes He hit Tintina’s failure, Finley said they plan to dig a paleoseismica trench through it. This would allow the equipment to examine the layers of compensated sediments and the date earthquakes, providing a clearer image of the failure recurrence rate.
How the fault moves
Tintina failure is a failure of right lateral attack, of the same type as the fault of San Andreas de California, which means that the two sides of the fault routine adapt horizontally. This type of failure can produce sudden and powerful changes or several meters in a single event, releasing large amounts of stored energy.
But Finley emphasized that while the tintina failure extends around 620 miles (1,000 kilometers), the largest slip of sliding in the world rarely exceeds 186 miles (300 kilometers). “The entire length of the fault was not broken at the same time,” he said. “However, our findings motivate greater scrutiny in other sections of the tinkle failure that could also be active.”
Risk for yukón and beyond
The equipment analysis suggests a break in this section of the tintina fault, magnitude 7.5, strong enough to cause severe sex tremors in the city of Dawson, damage to roads and mining operations, and trigger landslides. Moosehide and Sunnydale land landslides near the city of Dawson already show signs of instability.
In spite of this, the dye failure is not currently listed as a separated seismic source in the National Seismic Danger Model (NSHM) of Canada, which reports the earthquake construction codes and engineering standards. These findings will be incorporated into future updates and will be shared with local governments to improve emergency planning, according to the Press release.
This study was Posted on July 15, 2025In Geophysical Research Letters magazine.
