A swarm of more than 50 mostly minor earthquakes hitting the oceanic crust off the coast of Oregon is no cause for alarm, say the straight-laced, overly cautious seismology experts quoted in a Wednesday NPR article about the temblors. Fears that the shaking could portend a catastrophic megathrust earthquake and tsunami, causing untold destruction that would cost tens of millions of dollars in CGI production for a Summer blockbuster were downplayed by the experts.

“The Blanco Fracture Zone [a strike slip fault separating the Gorda and Juan de Fuca microplates off the Cascade region coast] is not connected directly to the subduction zone so it won’t affect the big fault under land (Cascadia megathrust),” said JPL geophysicist Eric Fielding, in an obvious contrast to what Jack Hall, Dennis Quaid’s rogue climatologist character from The Day After Tomorrow would have said. “[Magnitude 5 earthquakes] on Blanco are very common and have never been followed by something on land. Plate tectonics in real time” said UCLA seismologist Lucy Jones, not echoing what Anne Heche’s seismologist character from Volcano would have warned in this situation. “You need quite a bit of vertical displacement on the ocean floor to generate a tsunami, and earthquakes along the Blanco fault don’t generate it” said seismologist Jochen Braunmiller and not Pierce Brosnan’s volcanologist Harry Stamper in Dante’s Peak.

It is unknown if any real life rogue scientists were fired for disagreeing with what their boss said about not causing a panic. We will update this story if any of them currently drinking whiskey in an Astoria, Oregon bar have their thinking suddenly jarred by something mundane and rush back to the office in their open-topped vintage Jeep to explain the worrying new plot development.