Quake threat - California??

[blackhaus7]

Just the sousaphone.

I'm trying to give it up, honest.

Cold turkey from the sousaphone would be horrible. I admire your courage.

 

[Guest]

Cold turkey from the sousaphone would be horrible. I admire your courage.

 

[3113]

crazy people, living on a fault line...!

Well, the thing is that anyone could be living on a fault line and not know it. For example:

ON NOVEMBER, 18, 1755, THE EARTH beneath the waters off Cape Ann heaved. Within seconds, the seismic waves generated there traveled to the twisting lanes and wharves of pre-Revolutionary Boston. According to historical accounts, chimneys toppled from roofs, steeples parted from churches, and gables crumbled from building fronts and shattered on the lanes below. The weather vane atop Faneuil Hall snapped. Vibrations were felt from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Chesapeake Bay. Estimated at a magnitude 6.2, the Cape Ann earthquake is one of New England's strongest in recorded history.

But it's not the aberration you might think. In an average year, 30 to 40 earthquakes strike New England. Only a small fraction are strong enough to detect without instruments, yet a few have been large enough to cause damage. Big quakes outside New England can be felt here, too. Four years ago, a magnitude 5.2 tremor that jolted a remote region in the Adirondack Mountains, causing roads to collapse and foundations to crack, was felt as far south as Maryland. In 1929, a magnitude 7.2 quake centered off the southern coast of Newfoundland generated a tsunami that killed at least two dozen people; the quake was felt as far away as New York City.
A study by Boston College seismologist John Ebel, published earlier this year, zeroes in on the epicenter of the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake. Ebel, who has spent the last 25 years studying local quakes, also proposes a new idea: that all New England earthquakes -- including the 1755 one and a 1638 magnitude 7 quake probably centered in New Hampshire -- might be the aftershocks of an even larger historical quake. He says another large one may be looming.

Our earthquake threat is made more pressing by what distinguishes Boston among American cities: its elegant brick-and-mortar architecture, which in many cases sits on loose, unstable soil. Experts also warn that the city's aging infrastructure and utilities -- sewer mains, gas lines, bridges, and overpasses -- are rife with vulnerabilities. The length of time since the last significant quake seems to have dulled -- and, in some cases, erased -- our perception of the threat. Yet earthquakes do happen here. Why, then, isn't Boston ready for the next one?

The one advantage California has is that it KNOWS it's earthquake country and most of past buildings have been retrofitted to withstand earthquakes and ALL new buildings are built to code to withstand them (as best as any buildings can withstand earthquakes). Alas for the rest of America...you never know what city is on a fault that's time has come to quake--and most of those cities do not have buildings that can withstand a quake...so down they'll come.

Granted, California's earthquakes are more regular and more likely. The reality of our planet, however, is that faults are everywhere and any place can have an earthquake at any time.