French engineers have been experimenting with a technique that could redirect seismic energy away from structures such as cities, dams, and nuclear power plants, sparing them from damage. It involves digging large, cylindrical boreholes into the ground, forming a defensive geometry of lace-like arrays that, researchers hope, could deflect seismic waves and thus make whole landscapes "invisible" to earthquakes.
At 5:42 a.m. on March 27, 1964, a 9.2-magnitude earthquake erupted 78 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska. The earthquake remains the most powerful earthquake to strike North America, and the second-largest earthquake ever measured.
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The first story published about L.A.’s Monday earthquake had an interesting line appended to its end: "This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author."
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A peek at Crimea’s controversial election day, Philly widens freeways by mistake, and does Austin, Texas, have a drinking problem? Plus, the incredible story behind Rio’s most famous monument, and the truth about earthquakes in L.A. Come along with us on this week’s Urban Reads.
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The 4.4 jolt that shook Angelenos awake this morning was the latest reminder of our complicated relationship with the ground below us. But I had a different perspective of what was happening under my feet this time: Just before this latest earthquake, I took a walk along Hollywood’s fault lines with Dr. Lucy Jones, Los Angeles’s first Seismic Risk Advisor.
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The five-alarm fire that destroyed a San Francisco apartment building this week put the city’s municipal water supply to the test: When water pressure began to dwindle, firefighters tapped an emergency system that was built below the city—all the way back in 1913.
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Worrying about the Big One is so passé. What you should really be worried about are the Big ONES. Yep: chances are, it won’t be a single large earthquake that takes California out, it will be multiple, large earthquakes. Or perhaps you’d prefer to use the official Sharknado-esque term: "earthquake storms."
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There’s been plenty written about why the South suffered so much
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Have you ever heard of "earthquake lights"? I’ve spent a good chunk of my life in shake-happy coastal California and this phenomenon is news to me—but, for centuries, people have reported seeing a wide variety of illuminations just slightly before and during major tremblers. The origin of these glows have consistently baffled scientists—and no doubt freaked the hell out of eyewitnesses—but a new study seems to have found an explanation (one that doesn’t involve supernatural forces).
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Everyone knows that Yellowstone is home to a super-volcano
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