What do you think?
Rate this book
Why the Earth Quakes; the Story of Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Lots of diagrams and illustrations. A good eplanation and up-to-date on more of the recent EQ's and modern methods.
215 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1995
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 26, 2022
On October 17 1992, when a young adult Ross was standing in a semiconductor fab in Silicon Valley, wondering if it was late enough for me to head home (5:04pm, so maybe), an earthquake hit. It was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries, and was my first experience at learning that sometimes, even though you have a dialtone on your phone, you just aren't going to be able to place a phone call (because everyone else in the area is doing it at the same time). Fortunately, even though working in a building with a wide variety of toxic gases in overhead pipes, nothing ruptured, and all of the various safety systems worked as planned. It was, for me, kind of exciting, but not really threatening.
My parents, on the other hand, were seeing scenes of fire and collapsed buildings in San Francisco on their television, while also being told (accurately) that the epicenter of the quake was near Santa Cruz. Since San Francisco was north of me, and Santa Cruz was south of me, they were somewhat alarmed, because the simplest interpretation of how earthquakes worked would suggest that the scenes of devastation would be worse where I was, than even what they were seeing in certain parts of San Francisco. It turns out, though, that even most of San Francisco was not impacted nearly as badly as the neighborhoods shown on TV. Earthquakes are, yes, stronger near the epicenter, but there is a lot else that impacts how they behave, and what their impact is.
This book, published just 3 years afterwards, goes into a lot of that detail, and some of it is a lot more complex than "if you build your neighborhood on landfill instead of bedrock you may have a hard time in an earthquake". They make generous use of maps, diagrams, and other visual aids to help explain a topic that is, in some ways, very physical, and much more intuitively understood via visuals than via text only.
However, there is another side to this book, and that is the analysis of how several major earthquakes throughout history have impacted what society did afterwards. For example, San Francisco had a previous earthquake, in which it should have been made apparent that some areas of San Francisco were not safe to rebuild on. For whatever reason, this fairly straightforward conclusion was ignored. In many other cases, though, major destructive earthquakes have cause a reappraisal of not only where, but also how building was done. This book looks in some detail at how different countries (and different centuries) chose to react to what had happened.
Earthquakes are hard for society to think clearly about, and not only because the ground beneath our feet is something we almost instinctively regard as reliable and solid. Another problem is that, on a scale large enough to cause significant damage, they occur rarely, with years or even decades between events. Humans are pretty good at responding to dangers that occur every day, every week, or every month. Rare events, even if very damaging, tend to be harder for us to learn from, and it tells you something about the timeframe and perspective of a society to look at how (or if) they change their minds about how building must be done, in response to a threat that comes so seldom.
I'm sure more has been learned about earthquakes since 1995, but I was still happy to have found this little tome, which was both easy to read and easy to learn from.
My parents, on the other hand, were seeing scenes of fire and collapsed buildings in San Francisco on their television, while also being told (accurately) that the epicenter of the quake was near Santa Cruz. Since San Francisco was north of me, and Santa Cruz was south of me, they were somewhat alarmed, because the simplest interpretation of how earthquakes worked would suggest that the scenes of devastation would be worse where I was, than even what they were seeing in certain parts of San Francisco. It turns out, though, that even most of San Francisco was not impacted nearly as badly as the neighborhoods shown on TV. Earthquakes are, yes, stronger near the epicenter, but there is a lot else that impacts how they behave, and what their impact is.
This book, published just 3 years afterwards, goes into a lot of that detail, and some of it is a lot more complex than "if you build your neighborhood on landfill instead of bedrock you may have a hard time in an earthquake". They make generous use of maps, diagrams, and other visual aids to help explain a topic that is, in some ways, very physical, and much more intuitively understood via visuals than via text only.
However, there is another side to this book, and that is the analysis of how several major earthquakes throughout history have impacted what society did afterwards. For example, San Francisco had a previous earthquake, in which it should have been made apparent that some areas of San Francisco were not safe to rebuild on. For whatever reason, this fairly straightforward conclusion was ignored. In many other cases, though, major destructive earthquakes have cause a reappraisal of not only where, but also how building was done. This book looks in some detail at how different countries (and different centuries) chose to react to what had happened.
Earthquakes are hard for society to think clearly about, and not only because the ground beneath our feet is something we almost instinctively regard as reliable and solid. Another problem is that, on a scale large enough to cause significant damage, they occur rarely, with years or even decades between events. Humans are pretty good at responding to dangers that occur every day, every week, or every month. Rare events, even if very damaging, tend to be harder for us to learn from, and it tells you something about the timeframe and perspective of a society to look at how (or if) they change their minds about how building must be done, in response to a threat that comes so seldom.
I'm sure more has been learned about earthquakes since 1995, but I was still happy to have found this little tome, which was both easy to read and easy to learn from.
Want to Read
November 26, 2022Library-of-Congress QE522 L48 1995 Verona Shelving Facility, by request only.
April 15, 2012
Even though this book is aimed at adults, I devoured it as a curious fourth-grader. If your kid is a budding geology nerd, this book is written at a popular level that they will mostly understand and enjoy. Don't hold them back with condescending titles aimed at young children.
August 6, 2015
Title is misleading. Majority of book is on how we as humans cope with earthquakes and volcanoes. A lot of good information on how architects design earthquake resistant buildings. But then they threw in a last chapter on cosmology. What were they thinking? Meet the publishers word count?
January 14, 2023
Great simple book to help you understand the subject matter. Didn't have any thought to reading this, but was fun and found i read it cover to cover. worth the time if just for the knowledge itself.
June 19, 2016
I really need a geology shelf.
This book did not feed my need for an in-depth look at how Krakatoa exploded, how Plinian eruptions work, and the internal structure of a pyroclastic flow.
It did really nothing. And why the last chapter is all about the big bang I will never know.
The book discusses some major eruptions without being specific, talks vaguely about fault structure, but it's all very fast and haphazard.
It's like driving through the subject while in a speeding car. You see some things, but you know nothing about where you have been.
This book did not feed my need for an in-depth look at how Krakatoa exploded, how Plinian eruptions work, and the internal structure of a pyroclastic flow.
It did really nothing. And why the last chapter is all about the big bang I will never know.
The book discusses some major eruptions without being specific, talks vaguely about fault structure, but it's all very fast and haphazard.
It's like driving through the subject while in a speeding car. You see some things, but you know nothing about where you have been.
500-599-natural-science
January 22, 2019551.21
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews