Scan barcode
A review by juliechristinejohnson
Cascadia's Fault: The Coming Earthquake and Tsunami That Could Devastate North America by Simon Winchester, Jerry Thompson
3.0
My fellow residents of the Pacific Northwest: Be afraid. Be very afraid. There is a ticking time bomb beneath our feet. It could detonate tonight or in one hundred years. Who knows? There are smart geologists working hard to answer that question, but prediction science is a lot of tilting at windmills.
Still, this is fascinating stuff. Jerry Thompson takes us on an armchair tour through seismic activity of the ring of fire, starting with Mexico City in 1985, a jump back to Alaska, 1964 and on through the recent double tragedies of earthquake and tsunami in Japan, 2011. He drills down from the massive Ring of Fire to focus on the Cascadia Subduction zone that runs from Vancouver Island to Northern California, how it was discovered, and what can happen when It decides to cut loose with The Big One.
There is a baffling absence of maps. I live here, so I know the Northwest references, but what about everyone else? Not to mention the many sites outside the PNW: Central and South America, the South Pacific, Alaska, Japan, Southeast Asia...inexcusable not to show the plate and subduction zone formations, either.
I live on a peninsula that juts into the Puget Sound on one end, the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the other, bordered on a third side by two bays. Water in three directions. We'd be pretty well screwed if it weren't for the fact that higher ground is to our southwest: the Olympic Mountains. Our beaches sport tsunami sirens, the country roads have tsunami evacuation notices--every Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. downtown life is interrupted briefly by the chilling sound of the siren drill. Good thing I do hill repeats on my bike. When the rumbling starts, I'll shove the cat in her carrier, get on my bike and start peddling, uphill.
Still, this is fascinating stuff. Jerry Thompson takes us on an armchair tour through seismic activity of the ring of fire, starting with Mexico City in 1985, a jump back to Alaska, 1964 and on through the recent double tragedies of earthquake and tsunami in Japan, 2011. He drills down from the massive Ring of Fire to focus on the Cascadia Subduction zone that runs from Vancouver Island to Northern California, how it was discovered, and what can happen when It decides to cut loose with The Big One.
There is a baffling absence of maps. I live here, so I know the Northwest references, but what about everyone else? Not to mention the many sites outside the PNW: Central and South America, the South Pacific, Alaska, Japan, Southeast Asia...inexcusable not to show the plate and subduction zone formations, either.
I live on a peninsula that juts into the Puget Sound on one end, the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the other, bordered on a third side by two bays. Water in three directions. We'd be pretty well screwed if it weren't for the fact that higher ground is to our southwest: the Olympic Mountains. Our beaches sport tsunami sirens, the country roads have tsunami evacuation notices--every Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. downtown life is interrupted briefly by the chilling sound of the siren drill. Good thing I do hill repeats on my bike. When the rumbling starts, I'll shove the cat in her carrier, get on my bike and start peddling, uphill.