SEQUIM — In a multi-award-winning study, a young Sequim geoscientist is challenging widely held beliefs about tsunami risk and frequency on the North Olympic Peninsula, saying that a tsunami could hit the Olympic coast as early as 2040.
This researcher is just 17, but she has the attention of others in her field, including University of Washington professor and National Academy of Sciences geologist Brian Atwater.
Now she’s preparing to take her report to a national meeting in Bethesda, Md., next month.
She’s Marley Iredale, a well-traveled senior at Sequim High School.
Her study, “Evaluating Tsunami Risk in Discovery Bay, Washington,” has won her, among other prizes, the $2,000 first place award at the Washington Junior Science and Humanities Symposium March 11 and 12 in Edmonds, and best in category at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Reno.
That win last year included $5,000, an Intel laptop and a trip to the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland.
What Iredale would like to see in her hometown, however, are more evacuation-route signs, sirens and education about tsunamis.
The accepted science about the huge, marine earthquake-generated waves says that they occur every 500 years in the Pacific Northwest region; the last major tsunami happened Jan. 26, 1700, when the Cascadia fault beneath the Pacific ruptured in a magnitude 9 quake.
Geologists consider the Cascadia Subduction Zone — a long, sloping fault running from Vancouver Island to Northern California — the potential culprit for a future tsunami.
Discovery Bay sand beds
Iredale, however, spent some 500 hours on a study of the sand beds under Discovery Bay — and found signs of nine tsunamis over the past 2,100 years.
“My claim is that tsunamis occur more often in this area than what’s commonly accepted,” she said in an interview last week.
Iredale posits that the events can come every 240 years, twice as often as what other geologists believe.
Based on her findings, Iredale also asserts the probability of another tsunami in the next 30 years is 60 to 80 percent.
Multiple possible sources
Also according to her study, there are other possible causes besides the well-known Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Smaller fault lines under the Strait of Juan de Fuca, catastrophic events such as a landslide off of Protection Island at the mouth of Discovery Bay, and earthquakes beneath Puget Sound could all trigger tsunamis, she said.
Iredale isn’t the first to study the possibility of multiple tsunami sources.
In 2003 Harry F.L. Williams of the University of North Texas at Denton published a paper on the signs, in nine muddy sand beds under Discovery Bay, of major seismic activity that sent waves rushing in from the Strait.
Iredale’s research builds on Williams’ work, said Atwater, who helped vet her paper.
Atwater has suggested Iredale submit her study to Northwest Science, a peer-reviewed journal.
He declined to comment on her findings, however, until they’re published.
The teenager has also impressed another colleague, retired Los Angeles County civil engineer Ron Tognazzini.
He lives in Sequim, and works with the Sequim Middle School-Sequim High School science club.
“Marley has exceptional skills, especially in public speaking and presenting ideas,” he said, adding that he knows adult engineers who struggle mightily in those areas.
“But more importantly,” Tognazzini said, “she has a willingness to challenge herself and the world.”
Will people listen to Iredale’s findings regarding tsunamis on the Olympic Peninsula?
“Yes and no,” Tognazzini said.
No, because many underestimate young scientists. Yes — at least in his household — because it behooves them to be aware of tsunami risk to low-lying areas such as Three Crabs Road, Jamestown Beach and the Blyn waterfront.
Iredale, for her part, hopes Peninsula residents will educate themselves about what to do in a tsunami, be it large or small: stay far away from shore before, during and after the waves come, and have an emergency plan and basic supplies on hand.
“My goal at this point is to spread awareness,” she said. “There really isn’t a lot of information out there.”
Despite her intensive work in geology and her ease with the language of scientific research, Iredale hasn’t limited herself to this discipline.
Music and math
She loves music, and as drum major leads the Sequim High School band in processions such as the Irrigation Festival Grand Parade on May 8. She’s also tenor saxophonist in the jazz band.
“I’ve played music as long as I can remember,” as a way to relax with friends, Iredale said.
Then she added: “I’m good at math . . . I can retain lots of information . . . all of that, I attribute to music, to reading lots of music.”
And Iredale isn’t hanging a geology career on her horizon.
She plans to earn a degree in veterinary medicine, in order to study wildlife ecology. Translation: “I want to go tag caribou or grizzly bears,” in Alaska, Yellowstone National Park “or anywhere in the U.S. like that.”
One inspiration: Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring ignited the modern environmental movement.
“She stood for a lot of what I stand for. My big thing,” Iredale said, “is protecting the environment.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
