Lecture
In
May 2004, NBC released a miniseries entitled “10.5 The Big One is
only the Beginning” “Prepare for the New West Coast.”
In this over-the-top natural disaster thriller on earthquakes, the space needle
collapses in Seattle, and Los Angeles and San Francisco fall into the
ocean. A series of quakes move their way down the west coast as geologists
attempt to stop the quakes from happening. While full of many scientific
inaccuracies, it shows that the public is excited by natural disasters flicks.
In order to discuss earthquakes, we first have to briefly review what we learned about plate tectonics, and discuss the forces of Earth that cause rocks to fold and break, causing earthquakes. In the Earthquake Lecture, we will take a look at four different topics:
- Mechanics: A look at the mechanics of rocks with a revisit of Plate Tectonics and an introduction to folding and faulting.
- Energy: How seismic energy is released, how energy travels, how it affects earth material, and how energy is measured.
- Hazards: Natural and human induced hazards caused by earthquake, and a look at risk management.
- Case Studies: A look at the New Madrid Fault Zone and the Anatolian Fault Zone.
View of trolley, pedestrians and a horse drawn van moving along
Market Street in San Francisco, California, past buildings in ruins following
the 1906 earthquake. (Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-0053575.
Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society)