Ortiz-Mori 1

Vaninna Ortiz-Mori

Laura Wald

Geog 1700

September 28, 2017

Salt Lake Valley Earthquake Assessment

I live on 4700 s and Redwood Road, Taylorville. It has several conditions that would

affect the area, some of them are: There is a well by my house (around 4700 s and 2700 w) and

its most recent measurement is 24.57, making this well not far from the surface which could

cause extra shaking and liquefaction for sure if there is a 7.0 m or larger earthquake. There are

also gas transition pipelines but no hazardous liquid pipelines. The Salt Lake valley area is in a

red zone when it comes to sediments that are found on the surface which means that they are the

youngest rocks and cause more shaking. I am not near the mountains so am not worried too

much about landslides.

My hypothesis on what would happen to the area I live in is that there would be more

shaking, not only because of the young sediments and rock, but also because of the wells on how

close they are to the surface. Liquefaction would occur on a 7.0 m earthquake and also, the

segment of the Wasatch Fault is 25 miles long, reaching Taylorsville. The primary effects that

would occur would be water damage such as floods, collapsed buildings due to most houses in

the Valley not being built to handle these types of disasters. The secondary effects would include

disruption of electrical power, water issues, landslides near the mountains and because of the

extra shaking we have due to the conditions mentioned above I am sure there would also be

power problems, maybe fires and floodings. The tertiary effects would consist of maybe issues
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bringing the power and water back, possible water intoxication, torn down houses because of the

disaster, position changing in the lake or river channels, etc.

The safest place for me would be either Magna or Herriman. The reason why I believe

this would be the safest place is because it is far from the Wasatch fault, it only has Gas

Transmission Pipelines and does not have hazardous liquid pipelines, it has very few wells

around it and most of them are not considered high risk and their most recent measurements are

all around 89.47, making them not as close to the surface as most of the wells in the Salt Lake

valley and giving less chance for liquefaction to occur, etc. It does have younger sediment and

rocks that do cause more shaking but so does the whole Salt Lake area. There are also smaller

mountains around magna which reduces the chances of big landslides. The gas Transmission

pipelines do put at risk fires but just like the younger rock and sediments, most of the Salt Lake

valley has them.

These are all the reasons why I would choose this area and because the west side is

usually a little better due to the east side having most issues and of course the Wasatch fault.

Now that I have all this knowledge, I would probably prefer to move from Taylorsville for safety

purposes but also think that most of salt lake is contributed pretty equally on primary, secondary

and tertiary effects of an earthquake.