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BY ANDREW ROBINSON They’Ve Devastated Cities Throughout Human History, but Have Proved to Be One of the Most Difficult of Natural Phenomena to Understand

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BY ANDREW ROBINSON They’Ve Devastated Cities Throughout Human History, but Have Proved to Be One of the Most Difficult of Natural Phenomena to Understand HOW DO WE KNOW? How do we know? WHAT CAUSES EARTHQUAKES? BY ANDREW ROBINSON They’ve devastated cities throughout human history, but have proved to be one of the most difficult of natural phenomena to understand OT LONG AFTER midnight Every year in Britain, some 200 philosophers proposed natural on an ordinary evening in minor tremors are recorded by explanations. Aristotle, during the 2008, I had an uncanny seismographs. A magnitude-4 4th Century BC, believed in a ‘central seismic experience. I had just earthquake occurs every two or three fire’ inside caverns in the Earth. As finished drafting a review years on average; a magnitude-5 quake the subterranean fires burned away of a book called Apocalypse: every 10 years. In 1931, there was a the rocks, the underground caverns Earthquakes, Archaeology, quake of magnitude 6.1 – the largest collapsed, generating earthquakes. And The Wrath Of God British earthquake measured to date. Aristotle even classified earthquakes when I felt the floor of my As a rule, 90 per cent of these into types according to whether they Nupstairs flat in London shift almost tremors go undetected by the public. shook structures and people in mainly imperceptibly for a second or two. Those that are noticed – like the a vertical or a diagonal direction, and Perhaps the vibration had been caused magnitude-5.2 earthquake on 27 whether or not they were associated by a London Underground train, so I February 2008 – are nevertheless with escaping vapours. Much later, the forgot about it and went to bed. rapidly forgotten. To most people, Roman philosopher Seneca, inspired The following morning, however, earthquakes and England would in part by an Italian earthquake in the BBC radio news bulletin announced appear to have little connection with AD 62 or 63 that devastated Pompeii, that there had been an earthquake, at the almost apocalyptic earthquakes proposed that the movement of air – 12.56am. The British Geological Survey that have shaped society in countries rather than smoky vapours – trapped had monitored the event as having like China, Japan, Iran and Pakistan, and compressed within the Earth, was occurred at a depth of 5km, with its where violent shaking of the earth has responsible for both violent storms > IN A NUTSHELL epicentre in Lincolnshire, roughly killed millions of people in modern and destructive rock movements. north of London around 200km away, times. Yet, it was in Britain that and with a potentially destructive seismology emerged as a science. Once thought to be the work of magnitude of 5.2. One serious injury The first attempts to account for MADE IN CHINA callous gods, we’ve gradually come was reported and many houses earthquakes in other than divine The first measurement of an to understand the mechanics of close to the epicentre – where the terms come from ancient Greece earthquake comes from ancient earthquakes to the point where intensity of an earthquake is greatest – and Rome. Rather than imagining China, however. The earliest known we can accurately measure them Y and even predict where the next suffered damage. This was the biggest the god Poseidon striking his trident seismometer was invented in AD A road is decimated by a magnitude-6.8 ETT earthquake that struck Ojiya, Japan, in devastating blow might strike. : G earthquake in the UK since 1984. on the ground in anger, some Greek 132 by Zhang Heng. It consisted 2004, killing 68 people OTO PH 96 / FOCUS / OCTOBER 2013 How do we know? How do we know? of eight dragon-heads facing must have comprised a pendulum as But scientific understanding of flawed, geological paper, ‘Conjectures the eight principal directions of the primary sensing element, somehow how earthquakes form had to await concerning the cause and observations the compass. They were mounted on connected to levers that caused the the destruction of Lisbon in 1755 by upon the phaenomena of earthquakes’, CAST OF Masters of destruction: the minds who the outside of an ornamented vessel bronze balls to drop. an extremely powerful earthquake in the Royal Society’s Philosophical CHARACTERS unlocked the mystery of earthquakes said to resemble a wine jar with an According to Chinese history, in AD followed by a tsunami and fires. In Transactions for 1760. approximate diameter of 2m. Around 138 the seismometer enabled Zhang Britain, data on the effects of the He correctly concluded that the base, directly beneath the dragon- Heng to announce the occurrence of a Portuguese earthquake were collected earthquakes were ‘waves set up by Zhang Heng heads, were eight squatting toads major earthquake at Rosei, 650km to from all over the country and abroad shifting masses of rock miles below (AD 78-139) designed with open mouths. In the event of the northwest of the Chinese capital by the Royal Society, supplementing the surface’. However, his explanation the earliest recorded an earthquake, a bronze ball would Loyang – two or three days before that collected after a series of British for this shifting relied wrongly on seismometer. He was drop from a dragon-head into a news of the devastation arrived by earthquakes in 1750. John Michell, an explosions of steam when underground a Chinese astronomer toad’s mouth with a resonant clang. messengers. This prediction restored astronomer at Cambridge University, water encountered underground fires. and mathematician. In The direction of the earthquake was the faith of court officials in the took up the challenge of analysing the When the shifting occurred beneath 138, the seismometer probably indicated by which dragon- seismometer, and led the imperial eyewitness reports, and accounting the seabed, Michell also rightly measured a major head dropped its ball, unless more government to appoint a secretary for earthquake motions in terms concluded that it would produce a earthquake far from than one ball dropped, indicating a to monitor the instrument, which of Newtonian mechanics. Michell sea wave (a tsunami), as well as an the Chinese capital, more complex shaking. The device remained in existence for four centuries. eventually published an important, if earthquake. There were two types of two or three days before news of the earthquake wave, he said, once again Robert Mallet (1810-81) earthquake’s damage coming close to the truth: the first was an Irish civil arrived by messenger. was a ‘tremulous’ vibration within engineer and inventor the Earth, followed shortly by an THE KEY The movement of roads, fences and streams crossing the San Andreas Fault who became interested undulation of the Earth’s surface. in earthquakes DISCOVERY enabled Harry Fielding Reid to develop a theory of how earthquakes are triggered From this he argued that the during the 1830s. He speed of an earthquake wave could created experimental be determined by its arrival times at earthquakes with IN 1906, THE San Francisco earthquake the fault had been deformed by its The lower the friction, the weaker the fault different points on the surface. Such dynamite, investigated produced a surface rupture 435km (270 movement, and how after the earthquake and the more easily it would slip, suggested times were approximately known from the 1857 Neapolitan John Milne (1850-1913), miles) in length, and wide enough to swallow they were displaced or o!set by up to 6.4m. Reid. In places where the friction was of eyewitness reports for far-flung places earthquake through a British geologist and a cow, according to a famous folk tale of the He proposed that before the earthquake, medium size, the fault would slip frequently, affected by the Lisbon earthquake, detailed analysis of its mining engineer, was a time. The rupture happened in an area friction between the two sides of the fault producing many small earthquakes. But which enabled Michell to calculate damage to buildings, professor in Japan from named the San Andreas Fault. To explain it, had locked part of it, deforming it as the where friction was high and the fault strong, a speed for its wave of 1,930km/h. and compiled world 1876-95. His teaching, geophysicist Harry Fielding Reid published sides moved past each other – until finally it would slip only occasionally: there would He was the first scientist to attempt maps that showed the seismographs his mechanism of ‘elastic rebound’. the fault snapped. The sides sprang away be few, but large, earthquakes. While Reid’s such a calculation – unaware though earthquakes clustering he designed and his Reid had noticed that in the years before from each other and they elastically model su!ers from serious di"culties, it’s he was that the speed of seismic waves in mysterious belts. 1906, roads, fences and streams crossing rebounded, creating the surface rupture. still the best that seismologists have. varies with the types of rock through investigation of the 1891 which they pass. He then went further, Mino-Owari earthquake by theorising that the surface origin established Japanese Around 3,000 people were of an earthquake, what we now call seismology, while the killed and 80 per cent of the the epicentre, could be located by international earthquake city destroyed as a result of the combining the same data on arrival bulletin he issued after 1906 San Francisco earthquake times. Although he curiously chose his return to Britain a different – and inaccurate – way to Harry Fielding Reid led to the International SS calculate the epicentre of the Lisbon (1859-1944) served Seismological Summary RE on California’s started in 1918. NG earthquake (relying instead on reports O of the direction of the tsunami), his state commission theoretical principle is the basis of to investigate the Y OF C R 1906 San Francisco A today’s method for locating an epicentre.
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