Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off of their foundations. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can snarl traffic for months. However, when one examines the collective responses of developed societies to major...
Earthquakes rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky-or worse, a jet black one-comes shaking strong ...
This is the first book to really make sense of the dizzying array of information that has emerged in recent decades about earthquakes. Susan Hough, a research seismologist in one of North America's most active earthquake zones and an expert at communicating this complex science to the public, separates fact from fiction. She fills in many of the blanks that remained after plate tectonics theory, in the 1960s, first gave us a rough idea of just what earthquakes are about. How do earthquakes start? How do they stop? Do earthquakes occur at regular intervals on faults? If not, why not? Are...
This is the first book to really make sense of the dizzying array of information that has emerged in recent decades about earthquakes. Susan Hough,...
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man.
Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story,...
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned ...
Nonostante i rapidi progressi della scienza che studia I terremoti, per i sismologi non e ancora possibile prevederli. -Prevedere l'imprevedibile- e il primo libro che cerca di spiegarne il motivo, esplorando avvenimenti e aneddoti. Susan Hough ripercorre i tentativi dei sismologi di prevedere ora, posizione e grandezza di terremoti futuri - un percorso pieno di controversie, errori spettacolari e occasionali successi apparenti. Descrive speranze che si sono poi infrante a fronte di rigorosi controlli, cosi come approcci che sembrano oggi promettenti per il futuro. Racconta strani avvenimenti...
Nonostante i rapidi progressi della scienza che studia I terremoti, per i sismologi non e ancora possibile prevederli. -Prevedere l'imprevedibile- e i...
An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it's the catastrophic 2010 quake that took a devastating toll on the island nation of Haiti or a future great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in California, which scientists know is inevitable. Yet despite rapid advances in earthquake science, seismologists still can't predict when the Big One will hit. Predicting the Unpredictable explains why, exploring the fact and fiction behind the science--and pseudoscience--of earthquake prediction.
Susan Hough traces the continuing quest by...
An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it's the catastrophic 2010 quake that took a devastating...
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man.
Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story,...
By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned ...
