Earthquake Storms: The Fascinating History and Volatile Future of the San Andreas Fault
Most of us have heard of the San Andreas Fault, but we don’t know much about it, beyond the fact that it’s a big fault line in California. Author Dvorak capably fills in the blanks. Plate tectonics gave us the fault, the North American plate rubbing up against the Pacific basin plate and causing a fracture in the planet’s surface from one end of California to the other. And here’s the really troubling thing: California, known for its sometimes very severe quakes, hasn’t experienced one like the San Francisco quake in 1906 for about a century. The state, Dvorak warns, is overdue for something called an earthquake storm—a series of quakes, triggered by a single massive event, spreading out over a large geographic area and playing out over several years. This is a relatively new seismological theory about earthquakes, and how much readers accept about Dvorak’s book depends on their willingness to accept a theory that is still in the early stages of development. Still, this is a fascinating look at what could be in store for the country if proponents of the theory are correct. --David Pitt