A wrinkle beneath the icy face of Alaska

A few days ago, the forces beneath Alaska rattled people within a 500-mile radius: A magnitude 7 earthquake ripped under Hubbard Glacier.

The earthquake’s main shock and aftershocks have revealed something else — a possible slash across the face of Alaska long buried by glacial ice, a feature that professionals speculated upon decades ago.

Before getting to that, here’s a review from State Seismologist Michael West on the significance of an earthquake this big:

“We get so numb to magnitude scale in this state,” he said at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he works for the Geophysical Institute. “A magnitude 7 is one hell of an earthquake. Put that in Afghanistan, it would kill 10,000 people.”

So far, there are no reports of injuries in the restless corner of Alaska near the fis