California and the rest of the region to re-examine their safety measures for earthquakes. Nearby Oregon sits on a huge fault line that separates two of the Earth's tectonic plates. One plate lies beneath the Pacific Ocean, off Oregon's coast, and it is being shoved beneath the North American continent, according to Ian Madin, a geologist and chief scientist at Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. Are earthquakes on the rise ? The fault line, known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone, could one day cause an even larger quake. As the two plates collide, Madin says, the fault gets stuck, eventually slipping when enough stress builds up to produce a great earthquake. With ultra-accurate GPS, Madin says scientists know that the collision is still going on because they can measure the movement. Oregon actually moves about 1Â 1/2 inches every year, typical for a region near a subduction zone. These megaquakes can cause strong shaking over large areas for several minutes. They can also lead to landslides, tsunamis and widespread liquefaction, turning soil to soup. After the deadly 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, Oregon legislators commissioned a study on the impact a comparable quake could have on the state. Madin was one of the authors of the Oregon Resilience Plan, which is aimed at reducing risk and improving recovery for the next