Build a movie plot around this: How many people will die if there is further instability? millions
Answer:
In West Virginia, Charles "Boomer" Baxter is setting mountain top-depletion explosives. He detonates the TNT, and an unprecedented earthquake devastates the area. A few hours later government seismologist Dr. Amy Lane arrives at the quake's epicenter.She realizes that the quake has opened a deep fault running through the center of North America, ending at the San Andreas Fault. Any further instability will cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis, devastating Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities all around the Pacific Ocean, leading to the deaths of millions.Dr. Lane and Boomer chase just behind the expanding crack in the Earth's crust, developing a plan to stop the next quake. They decide to use a satellite orbiting above the continent which can trigger earthquakes. They fire it off when they reach the Grand Canyon, thinking that when the new fault hits the canyon it will be forced to turn south into the Gulf of Mexico. When the fault crosses with the canyon, the plan goes wrong. Instead of heading south it travels north, towards the Yellowstone Caldera.They realize that if the fault crosses with the caldera it would erupt, expelling 2,000,000 tons of ash into the atmosphere, killing millions immediately and causing a Volcanic winter. They decide to set explosives to block the fault's path. Later, when it reaches the park, Boomer detonates the explosives causing the fault to stop just short of reaching the volcano, but costing Boomer's life. In the end, an orbiting shot of the United States shows a giant, miles-wide canyon across most of the continent.