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Assesses the cities and communities at critical risk of earthquakes and what can be done to protect them.
List of contents
Part I. Earthquakes, Deep Time and the Population Explosion: 1. Plate tectonics and why we have earthquakes; 2. An earthquake primer; 3. Deep time; 4. When's the next big one?; 5. Population explosion and increased earthquake risk to megacities; Part II. Earthquake Time Bombs: 6. San Francisco Bay Area; 7. Los Angeles metro area; 8. Seattle, Portland and Vancouver; 9. Wellington, New Zealand; 10. Santiago, Chile; 11. Prologue in Central China; 12. Age of Enlightenment and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake; 13. Jerusalem; 14. Istanbul; 15. Tehran; 16. Kabul; 17. Earthquakes in the Himalaya; 18. Myanmar and the Sagaing Fault; 19. Metro Manila, the Philippines; 20. Lima, Peru; 21. Andean earthquakes in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador; 22. Caracas; 23. Haiti (which lost its gamble), and Jamaica and Cuba (not yet); 24. Mexico City; 25. Central America and the earthquake that brought down a dictator; 26. East African Rift Valley; Part III. Summary and Recommendations: 27. Where do we go from here?; References; Index.
About the author
Robert Yeats is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America. He is senior consultant and partner in Earth Consultants International, an international firm focusing on earthquake hazards, and also an Emeritus Professor at Oregon State University, where an endowed professorship has been named in his honour. He has decades of experience in earthquake geology worldwide, including acting as chair of an active fault working group of the International Lithosphere Program for several years and writing four previous books: Geology of Earthquakes (with Kerry Sieh and Clarence R. Allen), Living with Earthquakes in California, Living with Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest, and Active Faults of the World.
Summary
Yeats sheds new light on 'earthquake time bombs' worldwide and the communities at most risk. Comparing first-world and developing-world countries, he examines the seismic threat in the context of recent cultural history. Essential reading for infrastructure and emergency planners, scientists, and anyone living in the shadow of an earthquake.
