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Western Washington is basically one big subduction zone, and the Nisqually quake was at a depth of 52km, which is roughly where the Juan de Fuca plate and the North American plate meet below the Olympia area. In fact, search for "nisqually" and "subduction" on google and you'll get dozens of hits that refer to it as a subduction earthquake. The sentence needed rewritten because saying the earthquake occured BELOW the North American plate and IN the Juan de Fuca plate is technically inaccurate, but Nisqually was a subduction quake. I'm putting information back in regarding this. -- nknight 13:16, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Upon some further review, I had myself twisted around a bit. The sentence was in fact accurate (which I've reflected in my update to the article, though looking at it again it should probably be clarified further), and it also wasn't strictly a subduction quake. From Life in the Subduction Zone:

Deep earthquakes, suchde Fuca plate as it bends and deforms while sinking into the mantle,

So the overall picture is this: Nisqually wasn't actually a subduction quake, but *is* a consequence of the subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate. -- nknight 13:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

This article needs to be expanded quite a bit. I think some subsections need to be added: Reach of Quake Damage: Move damage descriptions into this section, expand to include information that damage occurred to buildings in Wenatchee and Yakima, over 100 miles away on the opposite side of the Cascade Range (Wenatchee damage included cracks in school and city buildings).

Effect on the Alaska Way Viaduct: Discussing damage, replacement, etc. of the Alaska Way Viaduct.

Some more sections may also be needed. I'll begin research sometime in the next few weeks. Cascadia^TALK|HISTORY 16:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It might sound weird, but I was studying Geologyin my old house there in Langley, BC, when that big earthquake struck home. It reminded me the many earthquakes back in Taiwan. That was so scary!The Professional 06:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)Jack Lin.[reply]

The article states that the epicenter of the quake was at 47.15N 122.73W, under Anderson Island. The location indicated is on the Kitsap Peninsula, 16 miles NW of Anderson Island according to Google Earth 5.0.1137.1968. The West longitude minutes (.73) appears to be a typo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CityKid (talk • contribs) 22:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I ran same coordinates in Goggle Earth (ver. 5.0.11733.9347), it's exactly were it should be, south western part of Anderson Island. Nebrot (talk) 18:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone interested in improving this article I offer the following suggestions. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1. The lead paragraph is nearly as big as the rest of the article. I would suggest that these details for the most part be placed in their own section, and the lead paragraph be scaled back to being a summary of the article.
2. The references are generally sparse, low-quality, and even incorrect. E.g., the sentence about property damage in Seattle has two footnotes; the first (#3) is only further text, without source, and the second (#4) references a paper that is concerned solely with landslides.
3. The Highland reference (footnote #4) is a USGS paper, and it would be better to cite it directly rather than indirectly through Google Books.
4. Ditto the "Isoseismal Maps" in footnote #1.
5. While the professional literature can be intimidating to the uninitiated, yet it can be informative; I do recommend searching Google Scholar. In this case there isn't much, but there is some information to be gleaned.
6. The "Geological origins" is poorly written. I would suggest starting with something like "The Nisqually earthquake occurred X miles below Anderson Island, about midway between Tacoma and Olympia, and near the Nisqually Delta, where it was initially placed. This was an intraslab earthquake, occurring just above the subducting JdF plate...." etc., etc. (There are some good graphics showing a cross-section of the subducting plate, which would be more informative to the vast majority of readers who have no idea of the significance of "X miles deep".)
7. The "similar significant earthquakes" should be named and wikilinked.
8. A brief mention of the events at the air traffic control tower might be of interest.

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.seattlepi.com/local/quak28ww.shtml
  • In 2001 Nisqually earthquake on 2011-05-25 07:11:01, 404 Not Found
  • In 2001 Nisqually earthquake on 2011-06-10 07:36:10, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 07:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.seattlepi.com/business/gates28ww.shtml
  • In 2001 Nisqually earthquake on 2011-05-25 07:11:01, 404 Not Found
  • In 2001 Nisqually earthquake on 2011-06-10 07:36:20, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 07:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The area in Pio Sq which got hit hardest was right where there had been a big riot 9-10 hrs earlier. As such, there was a lot of chatter (talk radio, newspaper columns) about how God was "smiting" us. Tongue-in-cheek, mainly, but it was common.

More importantly, I believe the mayor, police, etc. commented that there would have been serious casualties/deaths had the quake occurred a bit earlier, when the square was full.

I think this deserves a section. 209.172.25.201 (talk) 01:12, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This article was the subject of an educational assignment in 2013 Q3. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Louisiana State University/HNRS 1035 Natural Disturbances & Society (Spring 2014)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki.

I added these sections to improve the understanding of how this major earthquake affected the area. Jason1035 (talk) 19:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Greetings. I hope this request is in the correct place.

Since this was the most powerful earthquake I ever experienced, I wondered why the event's @45 second duration was not included in the article.

Thanks for any consideration into the additional data.

2601:640:8480:2390:7CAA:AECE:982F:B011 (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A few years later, done. Schazjmd (talk) 00:39, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]