Earthshaking Science
Subtitle: What We Know (and Don't Know) about Earthquakes
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: April 1, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780691050102
Subjects: Environmental impact of natural disasters & phenomena; Popular science; Vulcanology & seismology; Science/Mathematics; Earthquake Prediction; Science; Earth Sciences - Seismology & Volcanism; Earthquakes & Volcanoes; Earth Sciences; Science / Earth Sciences; Earth Sciences - Geology; Earthquakes
First sentence: Our fascination with earthquakes likely dates back to the dawn of human awareness, but efforts to understand them were doomed to failure prior to the 1960s.
Description: "Earthshaking Science 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 earthquakes predictable? How hard will the ground shake following an earthquake of a given magnitude? How does one quantify future seismic hazard?"--BOOK JACKET.