Earthquake Storms

by John Dvorak

Overview

“Dvorak has done earthquake science sterling service by writing what is unarguably the best, the most comprehensive and compellingly readable book about the great fault, America's 800 mile long seismic danger zone, that will one day affect all of our lives.”—Simon Winchester, New York Times Bestselling author of The Crack at the Edge of the World and Krakatoa

It is a prominent geological feature that is almost impossible to see unless you know where to look. Hundreds of thousands of people drive across it every day. The San Andreas Fault is everywhere, and primed for a colossal quake. For decades, scientists have warned that such a sudden shifting of the Earth's crust is inevitable. In fact, it is a geologic necessity.The San Andreas fault runs almost the entire length of California, from the redwood forest to the east edge of the Salton Sea. Along the way, it passes through two of the largest urban areas of the country - San Francisco and Los Angeles. Dozens of major highways and interstates cross it. Scores of housing developments have been planted over it. The words "San Andreas" are so familiar today that they have become synonymous with earthquake.Yet, few people understand the San Andreas or the network of subsidiary faults it has spawned. Some run through Hollywood, others through Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. The Hayward fault slices the football stadium at the University of California in half. Even among scientists, few appreciate that the San Andreas fault is a transient, evolving system that, as seen today, is younger than the Grand Canyon and key to our understanding of earthquakes worldwide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639360376
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	11/15/2021
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

John Dvorak, PhD, has studied volcanoes and earthquakes around the world for the United States Geological Survey, first at Mount St. Helens in 1980, then a series of assignments in Hawaii, Italy, Indonesia, Central America and Alaska. In addition to dozens of papers published in scientific journals, Dvorak has written cover stories for Scientific American, Astronomy and Physics Today.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Swimmer xiii

Chapter 1 A Noble Earthquake 1

Chapter 2 No Occasion for Alarm 24

Chapter 3 A Tumult of Motions and Noises 46

Chapter 4 Bridging "the Golden Gate" 71

Chapter 5 Blue Cut and the Mormon Rocks 92

Chapter 6 The Troubled World of Charles Richter 109

Chapter 7 Of Petrol and Pinnacles 126

Chapter 8 A Transformative Idea 148

Chapter 9 To Quake or Not to Quake 171

Chapter 10 Ancient Tremors 193

Chapter 11 Disassembling California 204

Chapter 12 Earthquake Storms 225

Epilogue: Bodega Bay 243

Acknowledgments 245

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

01/27/2014
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. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A massive earthquake is overdue at the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. Conditions are right for the Big One to hit a 100-mile segment of the fault that would be felt from San Diego to Los Angeles. But the problem is being able to pinpoint when the quake may strike. . . .

NPR

Dvorak has done earthquake science sterling service by writing what is unarguably the best, the most comprehensive and compellingly readable book about the great fault, America's 800 mile long seismic danger zone, that will one day affect all of our lives.

Simon Winchester

The real strength of Earthquake Storms is the clear and comprehensive treatment of geology as well as history, and offers a fascinating up-close look at the often overlooked people and stories behind science. Lastly, the book leaves readers in California with a bottom line as sobering as it is unassailable: We might not know exactly what storms lie ahead, but during all of our lifetimes, we have only ever known the lull.

Susan Hough

Reads like good sci-fi, with colorful characters making startling discoveries.

The Honolulu Star

A lively key to understanding the nature of faults, quakes, the San Andreas in particular, and the scientists who made stormy careers out of investigating some of the most elusive geologic mysteries in history.

Midwest Book Review

Scientist and author John Dvorak recounts California’s precarious relationship with the tectonic boundary between the Pacific and North American plates. Recommended follow-up reading for all Californians includes any manual on surviving the end of civilization or the zombie apocalypse.

Los Angeles Magazine

A welcome addition. Its chief strength lies in combining the lives and personalities of key geologists and seismologists, such as Lawson, Charles Richter, John Tuzo Wilson and Kerry Sieh, with the theoretical essentials and practical details of their scientific work, so that the former really do illuminate the latter.

Geoscientist Magazine

It's not just Californians who should pay attention to Dvorak’s exploration of earthquake science. Plenty of other parts of the country are vulnerable, including the Northwest, the Midwest, the South and—yes—even the Big Apple.

The Christian Science Monitor

02/01/2014
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.

Library Journal

2014-01-20
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.

Kirkus Reviews