Just discovered a 72km 'tear in the Earth', the world's second largest country is in fear of a tsunami attack

About 400,000 people are at risk of being hit by a tsunami after a 72km fault line was discovered by scientists.

Hidden beneath the lush forest canopy on Canada's Vancouver Island, researchers have discovered a new geological menace—a 72-kilometer-long fault line . They're calling this "tear" the XEOLXELEK-Elk Lake Fault (XELF ). The XELF fault runs through the Saanich Peninsula in Greater Victoria, Canada—the world's second-largest country by land area.

After discovering this giant tear, geologists, mineralogists, Earth and ocean scientists from France, the US and Canada simultaneously warned that the XELF Fault could pose a huge tsunami risk , National Post (Canada) reported on December 15.

The XELF fault has the potential to trigger a powerful earthquake that could trigger a tsunami that could affect hundreds of thousands of people, scientists warn. (Illustration photo).

Finding the fault line was initially difficult due to dense forest cover, but extensive research methods such as shallow geophysical surveys, historical image analysis and remote sensing helped scientists find this giant fault.

"Evidence confirming the presence of an active XELF fault is the exposure of faulted and folded Quaternary sediments when we excavated the area. Using radiocarbon dating of organic matter in the sediments, we were able to date these sediments to 14,000 years ago," the scientists wrote in the journal Tectonics.

The team also identified minerals in the rocks that showed changes in the magnetic field over time – a clear sign of a rock formation that was fracturing or breaking apart, further indicating the presence of a fault line.

Disaster warning for Canada and US West Coast

According to scientists' research, the XELF Fault runs northwest to southeast and may be a strike-slip fault, where rocks move up and down vertically relative to each other.

Typically, fault ruptures occur in geologically unstable areas. Therefore, if an earthquake were to occur along this fault line, it could trigger a local tsunami in the waters around Greater Victoria with catastrophic consequences for the approximately 400,000 residents of Canada's Greater Victoria region and potentially impact cities along the US West Coast , including Seattle, Bellingham, Olympia and Tacoma, scientists warn.

Greater Victoria is located in British Columbia, Canada, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island.

Furthermore, there are concerns that the XELF Fault may be linked to the Devils Mountain Fault in Washington state, USA, increasing the risk to the US.

The model warns of the risk of tsunamis hitting surrounding areas if a strong earthquake similar to the one that struck 2,300 to 4,700 years ago occurs.

The most recent earthquake that occurred on this fault occurred several thousand years ago (between 2,300 and 4,700 years ago) and had a magnitude of 6.1 to 7.6. It is possible that this event also caused a tsunami in history. An international team of scientists is currently studying this ancient earthquake.

'Determining whether the XELF fault has contributed to recent large earthquakes is important for updating regional earthquake hazard models and improving earthquake preparedness ,' the researchers write in the journal Tectonics.

Given its proximity to urban areas, the potential impact of an earthquake of similar magnitude to the ancient quake could be devastating today. The lead author stresses the difficulty of predicting the timing of such an event but encourages preparation, with careful study of the activity of this fault that 'bisects' the Greater Victoria region.

'We can't say for sure what the danger is at the moment, ' lead author Nicolas Harrichhausen (a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Grenoble Alpes in France) told the National Post . 'But one thing is for sure, there is a risk that we need to consider, but since we've only seen one earthquake in at least the last few thousand years, calculating the danger is very difficult.

We need more information, meaning more research and funding, to better determine the slip rate of the XELF Fault and the number of earthquakes it has experienced in the past. Only then can we use the model to estimate the risk posed to the Greater Victoria area . "