PORTLAND — Soon after the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, debris from across the ocean began washing up on Oregon shores.
A large concrete dock floated ashore near Newport. A derelict fishing boat washed up north of Lincoln City. Other, smaller debris showed up all along the coast and much of it was coated in potentially invasive species of algae, seaweed and other microorganisms.
But now, more than seven years after the quake, experts from Oregon State University say the Pacific Northwest dodged a bullet and none of the invasive species have gained a foothold in the waters off Oregon’s coast.
Those findings came in a study published this month in the journal Phycologia.
“When the large concrete dock laden with marine algae and invertebrates washed ashore near Newport, Oregon, some 15 months after the tsunami I was in the parking lot at ODFW discussing the fouling Japanese biota with some of the staff,” Gayle Hansen, an Oregon State University algal taxonomist and lead author of the study, said in a statement.