3. Earthquake lights, as this phenomena is called, are still a scientific mystery. There is no doubt they exist (there are even color pictures of them), but there is no certainty about what causes them—though various theories have been advanced. The lights seem to occur most often within seconds of great earthquakes such as those in New Madrid in 1811 and 1812, and various Chinese and Japanese quakes.
4. Dr. William Brace of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did the primary experiments in the early 1960’s, which also discovered changes in the electrical resistance (which decreased) and the porosity (which increased) just prior to the main break. Dr. Brace even predicted that the changed prebreakage properties of the rocks might be of use someday in earthquake prediction efforts, but he left it at that and went on to other unrelated research.
5. This really is a national problem, not a regional problem. The Pacific coast states, principally Alaska and California, are indeed especially vulnerable to earthquakes and related disasters, yet nearly every state in the nation faces some degree of risk from future earthquakes, and some seventy million people live in the thirty-nine states that are wholly or partly in areas facing a risk of moderate to major damage.
The earthquakes away from the plate boundaries are really infrequent, occurring perhaps every five hundred thousand years in some places, maybe every five hundred to a thousand years in others. But we haven’t been around this continent long enough to know which states are subject to such quakes and which states might not be. With great quakes so unpredictably infrequent, yet catastrophic when they do occur (such as in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886, and Boston, Massachusetts, in 1755), there is a strong possibility that the only reason we place certain states in the “no earthquake potential” category is that we are not historically aware of what really happened before our occupancy of this continent began.
But if every spot east of the Rockies is potentially at risk, which in fact, is true—then eastern cities are even more exposed than Los Angeles and San Francisco because too many of them are crowded with thousands of buildings raised with virtually no earthquake engineering or seismic design standards. Masonry buildings and brittle masonry facades, exterior gables and ledges, exposed bridges and saturated earthen dams, complexes of rail lines across saturated roadbeds, and a thousand other dangerously exposed man-made structures throughout the eastern seaboard make the thought of a major earthquake on an unexposed, unknown fault very disturbing. Could that type of quake be predicted? And if such a prediction were ever issued, how would the people respond?
As President Carter’s science adviser Dr. Frank Press told a congressional hearing in 1977, “… we must remember that despite a considerable seismic history, the United States has been extraordinarily lucky. Less than 1,200 people have lost their lives in United States earthquakes … [yet] seventy-four million people have died in earthquakes [through recorded human history].
“… In the Los Angeles area alone … estimates go as high as twenty-five billion in destroyed property and as many as twelve thousand lives lost if the so-called Palmdale Bulge is a warning that a major earthquake is forthcoming.… [Such] a catastrophe would certainly have national economic repercussions.”
Chapter 17
1. A seismologist by the name of J. A. Kelleher had identified this gap several years earlier, but the University of Texas team began its level of interest and research where he had left off.
2. Inamura’s work was discussed by several papers published in the eighties, those papers summarized by Karen McNally in “Variations in Seismicity as a Fundamental Tool In Earthquake Prediction,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 72, no. 6, (December 1982), p. S361.
Without the unifying principle of plate tectonics, no one could figure out why such great quakes seemed to occur at regular intervals. With Alfred Wegener’s theory still considered a discredited joke, it was two decades before the constant movement of the continental plates as the engine of such seismic events became clear—and Inamura’s work took on much greater significance.
3. There were two insurmountable problems: Allotting $250,000 meant that several other projects would go begging under available 1977–78 funding budgets, and, the Texas proposal concerned Mexican quakes, not U.S. quakes. Even though it was obvious that Alaska was subject to similar subduction zone great quakes, funding foreign projects had become a politically sensitive affair to the occasional congressman or senator who couldn’t understand why the USGS (whose funding he had quite often voted to trim) could not afford to finance a research project in his own state. Though such pressures would become far worse as the years went by, even in 1977 they dictated their own priorities. Then, too, as broad-minded and scientifically sophisticated as he was, the USGS project officer who rejected the Texas proposal, Jack Everendon, was not convinced that there was any possibility of predicting earthquakes by interpreting patterns of seismic activity (seismicity).
4. Even the governor of the Mexican state had to get involved, trying to calm his relatively unsophisticated population on the day the quake was supposed to occur—but didn’t.
5. This was the original definition of an earthquake prediction. In a report by the National Academy of Science-National Research Council (Panel on Earthquake Prediction of the Committee on Seismology, 1976), a prediction was defined as “[specific] expected magnitude range, the geographical area within which it will occur, and the time interval within which it will happen with sufficient precision so that the ultimate success or failure of the prediction can readily be judged. Moreover, scientists should assign a confidence level to each prediction.”
The definition instantly created nearly insurmountable problems for a seismological and geophysical community which suddenly found itself committed by the 1977 Earthquake Hazard Reduction Act to finding the perfect way to satisfy this precise definition for each anticipated earthquake. It would be several years before the work of the Chinese and the force of reality weighed in on American attitudes, and forced a much needed broadening and refinement of the definition to take into account the art of the possible.
6. Karen McNally wrote these words in a paper published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 72, No. 6, Page S351, “Variations in Seismicity as a fundamental Tool in Earthquake Prediction,” December, 1982.
7. Of course, part of the credit for that came from the work of Karen McNally herself, whose efforts to understand seismic gaps had advanced the science in leaps instead of steps. Dr. Kerry Sieh (whom Karen McNally had met several years earlier at Caltech) had been one of the other pivotal factors, providing a major breakthrough in the paleoseismologic methods of finding seismic histories. This is not to suggest that these two scientists were the only ones pushing the frontiers of knowledge in earthquake prediction; but their contributions have been (and continue to be) seminal, and they perhaps best reflect the dynamic and exciting possibilities open to any bright, hardworking young man or woman who approaches geophysics, geology, or seismology with the attitude that he or she can make a major difference. That attitude is fact. This is a very young science examining a very old planet, and we are on merely the threshold of understanding the processes, developing the theories, finding the evidence, formulating the models, and building the equipment needed to gain greater control of our environment and hopefully secure an increasingly harmonious and safe place within it. Kerry Sieh and Karen McNally, Brian Atwater, Tom Heaton, and hundreds more are sterling examples of the limitless opportunities. Geology is anything but just looking at rocks in a dusty university lab. Seismology is anything but passively watching squiggles on a seismograph drum. And geophysics is far more than endless mathematical theorems or theoretical stagnation.
8. In the early eighties, Karen McNally invited Kerry Sieh along with several other researchers to examine the seismic gap area in Michoacán, Mexico (northwest of Acapulco), with the idea in mind of perhaps working on a joint approach of paleoseismological excavations
complementing her seismological approach in determining as detailed a seismic history for the area as possible. Sieh, however, elected not to join the project because of other commitments.
Chapter 18
1. Liquid rock—magma—that contains heavy concentrations of silica becomes very thick and sticky and easily forms plugs which can block the throats of cooling volcanoes following an eruptive phase. When a huge hollow beneath such a mountain—a magma chamber—fills with molten rock at thousands of degrees Fahrenheit at the beginning of a new eruptive cycle, the magma is infused with gases and water vapor. As more magma enters from below, and more heat transforms more gases and steam into higher pressures bottled up by ancient plugs of cooled lava from previous eruptions blocking the deadly mixture’s path to the surface, the entire mountain becomes a bomb. When such a bomb explodes, it does so in a monstrous occurrence very unlike the smooth and predictable lava flows typical of Hawaii’s volcanoes. Such mountains as Mount Pelée in Martinique (which blew up in 1902), Mount Krakatoa (which pulverized an island in 1883), and many others are of this explosive classification. By contrast, the volcanoes of Hawaii are very low in silica content, and rich in iron (a basaltic lava type), which results in easily flowing magma and little explosive potential.
2. After a Transamerica C-130 cargo airliner had lost three of its four engines to an ash plume embedded in instrument weather—solid cloud layers—(and not noticed by radar), air traffic controllers began taking great care to coordinate ash plume activity with rerouted air traffic over the northwestern skies. In the meantime, hundreds of emergency vehicles were found to have major engine damage from operations in the ash storm of May 18th, and farmers in eastern Washington were confronted with fields inches deep in ash that would destroy the engine of any bulldozer that attempted to move it. In addition to the very serious concern over what the thousands of tons of ash would do to the crops, the losses to machinery were staggering. There were, as well, respiratory problems with the ash, and quite a bit of uncertainty over just how dangerous it might be to breathe air containing suspended particles of ash. In eastern Washington and Idaho, especially, there was a run on dust masks at local hardware stores.
There were, of course, many humorous stories, jokes, and bumper stickers—some sophisticated, some not—which came out of the explosion. Perhaps the best was a simple bumper sticker with an image of the gigantic ash plume of the May 18th eruption and the words “Don’t come to Washington—Washington will come to you!”
3. The San Andreas Fault is the boundary line between the North American plate and the Pacific plate, but unlike the Pacific Northwest to the north and all of Mexico, Central America, and South America to the south, the San Andreas is not a subduction zone. Instead of diving beneath the North American plate, the Pacific plate moves slowly northwestward, scraping and sliding past the presumed vertical wall of the North American plate along the San Andreas Fault. Given the current accepted estimates of the slip rate at 3.45 cm/year (approximately), some seismologists have illustrated the relative speed of the Pacific plate’s northwestward movement by pointing out that Los Angeles (which is on the Pacific plate side of the San Andreas and is being carried northwestward with the plate) will become a suburb of downtown San Francisco in 18,663,000 years (while the Daly City on San Francisco’s western flank will be little more than an underwater ridge four hundred miles north-northwest of San Francisco). In only 55.9 million years, L.A. will become an island hundreds of miles west of Puget Sound out in the Pacific, and within 100 million years the block of earth L.A. now occupies will dive under the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, subducting beneath that portion of the North American plate, only to be remelted 15 million years later and emerge in some distant future as magma in a volcanic eruption.
4. The Rainiers and St. Helenses and Krakatoas of the world consist primarily of rhyolitic lavas—magma rich in granitic, crystalline rock, which is, in turn, rich in silica. The Hawaiian type (shield volcano in terms of classification of cone shape) involves magma which comes more directly from the earth’s mantle, and thus is primarily basaltic.
5. The location of the hot spot has not changed in millions of years, but its position beneath the North American plate has. In fact, looking at any surface relief topographic map of the western United States will provide a startlingly clear picture of the path of the Yellow-stone hot spot from the Pacific coast across Oregon and Idaho to its present position beneath northwestern Wyoming—a process that has taken tens of millions of years.
Chapter 19
1. This was reported in the Sacramento Bee, August 1, 1982, and cited by George Mader and Martha L. Blair in an excellent book on the Mammoth Lakes affair entitled Living with a Volcanic Threat, written by George G. Mader and Martha L. Blair of William Spangle and Associates, Inc. of Portola Valley, California, and printed by the same firm in 1987.
2. The USGS was supposed to issue this level of alert when they were convinced that “a potentially catastrophic event of generally predictable magnitude may be imminent in a general area or region and within an indefinite time period (possibly months or years).” This comes from the USGS 1977 “Warnings and Preparedness for Geologic-Related Hazards, Proposed Procedures,” as published in the Federal Register, vol. 42, no. 70, April 12, 1977, p. 19292, and as cited in Mader and Blair’s book mentioned previously.
3. The USGS men had promised—as had their new director, Dallas Peck—that all official discussion in the public arena would come from another volcanologist, Dr. David Hill. One of the major complaints of the publicity holocaust of the previous three months had been the diverse opinions from various scientists interviewed by various reporters under varying circumstances involving vastly different questions. The resulting chaotic mix of stories carried widely diverse quotes, some scientists seemingly stating that no danger existed, others apparently indicating concern that the town might blow off the map at that very moment.
4. Al Leydecker and Mike Jencks had refused to deny the volcanic hazard, or join in the attacks on the USGS. Both men had also refused to attribute the local economic crisis solely to the USGS action of issuing the notice, citing instead the national recession, gross over-development, artificial inflation of real estate prices, and the effects of bad weather on both the summer season and the winter ski season during one previous year. Leydecker, who was technically conversant with geology (and had held formal slide shows and classes in Mammoth Lakes to explain the situation), was also, however, a rather aggressive nonconformist in his dress and his style of service on the county Board of Supervisors. Jencks, a local attorney, also had alienated himself from the political mainstream on several issues. With these public and political liabilities, it would be inaccurate to say that the two men were recalled simply because they advocated a more realistic response to the USGS warnings and the volcanic threat (or because they were willing to talk about it in public). There is little doubt, however, that their stand on the volcanic issue accelerated their political demise. In any event there was an unfortunate message sent by the voters to the other members of the Board of Supervisors: Recognition of the volcanic threat could be hazardous to your political health.
5. In a rather facetious effort to hide the real purpose of the road from the visiting public, however, it was labeled the “Mammoth Scenic Loop,” though little more than a forest and a few distant ridgelines can be seen from its entire six-mile length!
Chapter 20
1. The final figure for city repairs subject to government assistance payments would come to $2,871,160, of which FEMA paid 42.84 percent, the state of California paid 51.84 percent, Fresno County Redevelopment paid 3.45 percent, private contributions picked up 0.79 percent, and the city paid 1.08 percent. It would require four years of constant staff work, however, to prepare and process the appropriate paperwork—staff time for which no reimbursement was allowed (as per Coalinga Earthquake Claims Project records).
2. Scrivner approached the Small Business Administration several mont
hs after the earthquake, assuming that lower-interest disaster assistance loans could help ease his $120,000 loss. Like many other businessmen, Scrivner had erroneously believed the SBA disaster loans were based on degree of damage, not degree of financial need.
Keith Scrivner had been the only licensed underground utilities contractor in the city at the time of the quake, and because the town had urgent need of his company’s services (and his employees needed the business) which he could not provide under conflict-of-interest laws as long as he was the mayor, Scrivner resigned after much soul-searching, and after assuring himself that the first phases of the recovery were firmly in hand. In 1986 he again ran for—and was elected—mayor of Coalinga.
3. “We had all watched Grenada,” Scrivner would say later, “… and how two days after we ran out the Cubans, we poured tens of millions of dollars into the place. Well, the people of Coalinga could have used just a fraction of that. But we’re afraid to give each other federal dollars, while unafraid to give it to foreigners. That, to me, is ironic.”
On Shaky Ground Page 40