Disaster deferred : how new science is changing our view of earthquake hazards in the Midwest / Seth Stein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stein, Seth.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Earthquake prediction--Technological innovations.

Earthquake prediction.

Earthquake prediction--Middle West.

Earthquake hazard analysis--Middle West.

Earthquake hazard analysis.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (297 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the winter of 1811-12, a series of large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone-often incorrectly described as the biggest ever to hit the United States-shook the Midwest. Today the federal government ranks the hazard in the Midwest as high as California's and is pressuring communities to undertake expensive preparations for disaster. Coinciding with the two-hundredth anniversary of the New Madrid earthquakes, Disaster Deferred revisits these earthquakes, the legends that have grown around them, and the predictions of doom that have followed in their wake. Seth Stein clearly explains the techniques seismologists use to study Midwestern quakes and estimate their danger. Detailing how limited scientific knowledge, bureaucratic instincts, and the media's love of a good story have exaggerated these hazards, Stein calmly debunks the hype surrounding such predictions and encourages the formulation of more sensible, less costly policy. Powered by insider knowledge and an engaging style, Disaster Deferred shows how new geological ideas and data, including those from the Global Positioning System, are painting a very different-and much less frightening-picture of the future.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Chapter 1. Threshold

Chapter 2. The Day the Earth Stood Still

Chapter 3. Think or Panic?

Chapter 4. The Perfect Mess

Chapter 5. Earthquake!

Chapter 6. Breakthrough

Chapter 7. How the Ground Shakes

Chapter 8. How Earthquakes Work

Chapter 9. Plate Tectonics Explains (Most) Earthquakes

Chapter 10. Earthquakes That Shouldn't Happen

Chapter 11. What's Going on Down There?

Chapter 12. Guidance from Heaven

Chapter 13. Faults Turning On and Off

Chapter 14. More Dangerous than California?

Chapter 15. Chemotherapy for a Cold

Chapter 16. What to Do?

References

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613791818

9781281829313

1281829315

9780231522410

023152241X

OCLC:

694142907