<P> The Seattle Fault is a zone of multiple shallow east - west thrust faults that cross the Puget Sound Lowland and through Seattle (in the U.S. state of Washington) in the vicinity of Interstate Highway 90 . The Seattle Fault was first recognized as a significant seismic hazard in 1992, when a set of reports showed that about 1,100 years ago it was the scene of a major earthquake of about magnitude 7--an event that entered Native American oral legend . Extensive research has since shown the Seattle Fault to be part of a regional system of faults . </P> <P> 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 were 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 . </P>

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