Many Alaskans will never forget where they were at 1:12 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2002. That’s when a magnitude 7.9 earthquake, one of the most powerful recorded on U.S. land, shook south-central Alaska. Shelves fell, cars bounced, people tumbled off their feet, trees split open.
The earthquake might elucidate the murky relation between the 400-mile-long Denali fault and other Alaskan faults, according to scientists who’ve begun analyzing the event and its aftershocks. Visible from space, the Denali fault rivals California’s San Andreas fault in size but, during at least the past century, has been far less active.