Unexpected effects of the 2011 Japanese earthquake

On Friday 11 March 2011, a devastating earthquake, which registered 9.0 on the Richter scale, hit off the north east coast of Japan. A result of the Pacific tectonic plate slipping underneath a neighbouring plate, the earthquake caused extensive damage and generated a tsunami wave, which resulted in further devastation.

Over a year later, the effects of the earthquake are still being assessed, and not just in Japan. Earlier in the summer, a floating dock from the coast of Japan unexpectedly washed up in Newport, in southern California, having travelled over 8000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists at Oregon State University are now working to characterise and document the dozens of species on the dock that so far consists of barnacles, starfish, urchins, anemones, amphipods, oysters, clams, crabs, worms, mussels, limpets, snails, solitary tunicates and algae, together weighing over an estimated 100 tons!

"Nearly all of the species we've looked at were established on the [floating dock] before the tsunami; few came after it was at sea," explains John Chapman, one of the researchers. The incredible survival of the species after their epic journey poses a threat to the local ecosystem, as the majority are not native to the California coastline. The local authorities are planning to scrape all the species off the dock to minimise the risk of them spreading into the environment.