Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Earth Sciences - Seismology & Volcanism

In the last three years, there have been three large tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, most notably the notorious one which struck on 26 December 2004 and killed more than 238,000 people. It was generated by one of the largest recorded earthquakes in the last 100 years. Such events occur about four times per century, mainly in the Pacific Ocean. Few scientists were aware that the Indian Ocean was vulnerable: only Thailand had been warned of the potential for such an event. However, tsunami are also insidious local hazards. Since 1990, at least eleven events have impacted on the world s...

Modern seismology has faced new challenges in the study of earthquakes and their physical characteristics. This volume is dedicated to the use of new approaches and presents a state of the art in historical seismology. Selected historical and recent earthquakes are chosen to document and constrain related seismic parameters using updated methodologies in the macroseismic analysis, field observations of damage distribution and tectonic effects, and modelling of seismic waveforms. A critical re-evaluation of historical accounts and early seismograms provides us with the basis for a realistic...

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...

Defending society against natural hazards is a high-stakes game of chance against nature, involving tough decisions. How should a developing nation allocate its budget between building schools for towns without ones or making existing schools earthquake-resistant? Does it make more sense to build levees to protect against floods, or to prevent development in the areas at risk? Would more lives be saved by making hospitals earthquake-resistant, or using the funds for patient care? What should scientists tell the public when - as occurred in L'Aquila, Italy and Mammoth Lakes, California -...

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...

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan's coast, triggering a powerful tsunami. The massive destruction that resulted proved that not even sophisticated, industrialized nations are immune from nature's fury. Written to take some of the mystery out of the earth's behavior, this encyclopedia chronicles major natural disasters that have occurred around the Pacific Rim, an area nicknamed the "Ring of Fire" because of the volatile earth that lies above and below.

The encyclopedia offers descriptions of deadly earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis through time....