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
- Chapter 1 Threshold
- Chapter 2 The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Media Circus
- The Morning After
- Chapter 3 Think or Panic?
- Earthquake Hazards and Risks
- Disaster Panics
- Groupthink
- Are Scientists Better ?
- Chapter 4 The Perfect Mess
- Universities
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Earthquake Engineers
- Emergency Managers
- Zombie Science
- Chapter 5 Earthquake!
- River World
- Life on the Mississippi
- The Ground Shakes
- Using the Clues
- Chapter 6 Breakthrough
- Disaster
- Elastic Rebound
- Using Elastic Rebound
- The Missing Piece
- Chapter 7 How the Ground Shakes
- Seismic Waves
- Seismometers
- Seismograms
- Why Places Shake Differently
- Seeing into the Earth
- Chapter 8 How Earthquakes Work
- Where Was It?
- How Big Was It?
- Why Magnitude Matters
- Big Earthquakes Are Rare
- How Did the Fault Move?
- What Happened in the New Madrid Earthquakes
- Chapter 9 Plate Tectonics Explains(Most) Earthquakes
- Developing the Idea
- Plate Tectonics
- Where Earthquakes Happen
- When Earthquakes Happen
- Earthquakes Near Plate Boundaries
- Chapter 10 Earthquakes That Shouldn’t Happen
- Intraplate Earthquakes in North America
- White Rocks and Black Rocks
- How Continents Are Injured but Survive
- New Madrid as a Failed Rift
- Chapter 11 What’s Going on Down There?
- The Failed Rift Model
- Getting the Picture
- Real-world Messiness
- Why New Madrid?
- Chapter 12 Guidance from Heaven
- The GPS Revolution
- Fun in the Field
- Nothing Is Moving
- Chapter 13 Faults Turning On and Off
- Changing the Model
- Episodic, Clustered, and Migrating Earthquakes
- Implications for New Madrid
- Chapter 14 More Dangerous than California?
- What Makes Sense?
- Estimating Hazards
- Defi ning Earthquake Hazards
- How Much Do You Want It to Be?
- Caveat Emptor
- Chapter 15 Chemotherapy for a Cold
- Keeping Buildings Standing
- Tough Choices
- New Madrid Issues
- Chapter 16 What to Do?
- Tone Down the Hype
- Use What We Know
- Discuss Uncertainties Fully
- Keep Thumbs off the Scale
- Make Policy Openly
- Make Policy Thoughtfully
- Improve Disaster Planning
- Continue Learning
- Further Reading and Sources
- References
- Acknowledgments
- Index
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