Brian Atwater
Affiliate professor, Department of Earth & Space Sciences
Tsunamis
Expertise: Tsunami hazards, especially from earthquakes; transoceanic tsunamis; historic tsunamis including the 1700 Cascadia earthquake
Brian Atwater is a U.S. Geological Survey scientist based for the past three decades at the University of Washington. He began his research career with studies of sea-level changes and tidal-marsh vegetation at San Francisco Bay, and with studies of crystalline rocks and glacial-lake deposits near Grand Coulee Dam. Since moving to Seattle he has focused on earthquake and tsunami hazards. His findings hastened consensus that the Pacific Northwest is subject to earthquakes as large as magnitude 9.
