Fault Lines: Understanding the Power of Earthquakes
Table of Contents introdUction 6 chaPter one a Planet in Motion 10 Angry Gods 13 On the Move 13 Bump 15 Split 20 Slide 20 A Stressful Situation 22 Riding the Waves 24 chaPter tWo MagnitUdes and ePicenters 30 A Giant Pen 32 Measuring Magnitude 33 That’s a Lot of Energy 36 Locating Epicenters 38
chaPter three More than JUst shaking 44 Foreshocks and Aftershocks 47 Walls of Water 48 Walls of Earth 51 Liquefaction 52 Floods and Fires 54 Collapsing Buildings 55 chaPter foUr on the groUnd and in the skY 60 Warning 63 Getting a Head Start 66 All Together Now 70 Tools in the Sky 70 chaPter fiVe readY 74 Be Prepared Not Scared 77 Prepare Yourself 78 Prepare Your Home 80 Prepare Your Family 84 And Remember 85 acknoWledgMents 88 resoUrces 91 glossarY 92 indeX 94
Introduction When i Was foUr Years old I lived with my family in Tokyo Japan I remember seeing the polite nods and warm smiles in the crowded subways riding on the back of my mother’s bicycle through the alleys of the city and wishing we could visit the five-story Sanrio toy store I also remember the regular earthquake drills in our kindergarten class We would scramble to get under the desks and then line up and march outside It seemed like a fun game at the time but there was seriousness about it I first felt the ground move one day when I was playing at home after school I had cleared out a bookshelf bookshelf to use as a Barbie house when suddenly all the showing off my school uniform on my first day of kindergarten in tokyo my little sister jessica is in the stroller beside me Piroska Wagstaffe 6
toy furniture started shaking and falling off the shelf I did what we had practiced at school and crawled under the coffee table calling out to my parents It was only a small quake but the strangeness of the feeling of having no control stuck with me as did the sense of how well prepared the Japanese were Maybe that was what led me to study earthquakes later on Back in Canada when I got to high school geography the study of the earth’s surface made perfect sense to me The earth’s processes explained things that we could see around us The water cycle explained why it rained The force of flowing water on a bank carved out the curves of a river But there are still mysteries and scientists are still learning how our planet works At university I wanted to understand more about how our world worked so I took seismology the study of earthquakes and got completely hooked on the earth After four years of learning what happens under our feet I wanted to learn more about what happens above our heads so I went to another university to learn about meteorology the study of the atmosphere including climate and weather When major earthquakes happen around the world part of my job as a journalist is to explain to our viewers the science of what is happening Here i am reporting on a large earthquake that struck off the coast of japan in november 2016 cBc along with covering breaking news i also do in-depth science stories Here i am interviewing the assistant fire chief for Vancouver fire and rescue services about the kinds of drills the city practices in preparation for a major earthquake jessica linzey 7
