Earthquake Storms

January 27, 2014
Dvorak, formerly of the U.S. Geological Survey, treats Californians and other tectonics enthusiasts to an enjoyable history of the Golden State’s earthquakes alongside a bracing look at potential future ones. Dates, locations, magnitudes, and damage figures are all embedded in these stories of quakes and in the stories of those who studied them, like Andrew Lawson, the University of California geology professor who named the San Andreas Fault in 1895, and Charles Richter, developer of the eponymous magnitude scale. Dvorak describes the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and resultant fire via the daring rescue of nearly 1,500 botanical samples and he carefully details where readers may see physical evidence of earthquakes, for instance “a three-foot-high step” between an L.A. fast-food restaurant and its parking lot caused by the 1971 quake. Dvorak has both good news and bad news for Californians: “a major earthquake along the San Andreas Fault will not cause California to fall into the ocean,” but a 2008 report from the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities has given a 59% chance that a magnitude 6.7 or greater quake will strike the southern segment of the San Andreas Fault within 30 years. Photos.

February 1, 2014

Dvorak (formerly, U.S. Geological Survey) combines historical and scientific narrative to tell the story of California's San Andreas Fault, which exists at the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which occurred along the fault and left a 270-mile-long visible fault rupture, accelerated the study of seismology in California. The author recounts the work of prominent 20th-century geologists, including Charles Whitney and Andrew Lawson. Geologists have learned that sections of the fault behave differently, with one portion creeping slowly while other portions are locked in position, thus accumulating stress that is released as earthquakes. Eventually such a release will result in a major earthquake. Dvorak posits that the last 100 years in California have been relatively quiet seismologically, but he notes other major fault systems, such as in Turkey, that were quiet for a period and then released their accumulated stress in a series of major earthquakes--a seismic storm. These storms can last for decades or centuries until the stress is released; the San Andreas Fault may be ripe for such a series. VERDICT A must read for earthquake buffs--and West Coast residents.--Jeffrey Beall, Univ. of Colorado, Denver, Lib.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2014
A thoroughly rewarding explanation of earthquakes built around the famous San Andreas fault, which runs the length of California. Science writer Dvorak emphasizes that it was barely 50 years ago when scientists agreed that earthquakes were not the result of exploding underground gases, volcanism or a wrinkling of the Earth's surface as it slowly cooled. Much of their enlightenment occurred in California, and the author turns up half a dozen intrepid, eccentric and largely unknown geologists (Grove Gilbert, Andrew Lawson, Charles Richter, Harry Fielding Reid) whose insights began to converge after the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In the massive studies that followed, scientists could not fail to notice the long San Andreas fault, a crack in the Earth's surface soon found to extend the entire length of the state. No one doubted that movement along this fault had occurred during the quake since roads, pipes, rails and fences that crossed the line had shifted as much as 20 feet and always in the same direction. This was considered an effect, not a cause of the quake, and the few perceptive observers who disagreed were dismissed. It's a rule of science that facts mean little in the absence of a good theory to explain them. This finally arrived in the 1960s with plate tectonics, which asserted that vast, floating segments of the Earth's crust are creeping horizontally past each other. One segment often sticks fast against its neighbor; pressure builds over decades until it breaks loose, producing one or a series of quakes. "[T]he San Andreas Fault and its many subsidiary faults are slowly tearing California apart," writes the author, "so that much of what is California today will be transformed into a collection of islands that are destined to be rafted northward across the Pacific." Although almost entirely focused on California, this is a fine popular primer on the subject, lucidly written and no more technical than necessary.

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