San Pedro Fossils Indicate Tsunami Struck 80,000 Years Ago

A fossil deposit along the north side of 2nd Street between Pacific Avenue and Mesa Street in San Pedro provides strong evidence that a tsunami struck the area about 80,000 years ago. Paleontologist Edward Marks of Cypress and engineering geologists Stephen E. Jacobs of Carlsbad and Arthur R. Brown of Seal Beach said the deposit contained a 1- to 3-foot-thick “fossil hash”, indicating that a large wave flooded the area following an offshore earthquake.

Most other geological evidence in the area has been destroyed by urbanization. The recently discovered deposit also may be gone before long, they said at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Universal City.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II