Tag Archives | Earthquake

Bridge damage from the Loma Prieta Earthquake.
Photo credit: Joe Lewis

Do you want insurance with that shake?

I come from the land of tornadoes in the Upper Midwest. I’ve spent nights in the basement, watched rotating clouds for much longer than was wise and picked up softball-sized hail in the aftermath of the storm. But now I live in California, land of earthquakes, and my husband and I are buying a home…

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York Johnson, who works with the Tillamook Estuaries Partnership, collects a sample of coastal water in Pacific City, Ore. Ken Buesseler will analyze the sample for radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Fukushima Daiichi news – a teachable moment

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake occurred offshore of Japan and kicked off a tsunami. At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, the natural disasters knocked out backup power systems used to cool reactors. Consequently, three reactors underwent fuel melting, hydrogen explosions,…

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An engraving depicting damage from the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes from Henry Howe's Historical Collections of the Great West (Cincinnati, 1854, p.239).
Image provided courtesy of Martitia Tuttle.

The Earth Staggers

Long ago, years before they would marry, make two children, raise them and eventually divorce, my parents shared a bizarre experience. On a Sunday morning in the early 1960s, they were at the same church service. Suddenly, everything began to move. Dad first saw something amiss with the ceiling fans. “They were dancing!” he told…

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Credit: Flickr: mlradio

Water pumping elevates Central Valley, increasing earthquake odds

In a dire drought like this one, most people aren’t worried about the connection between groundwater pumping and seismicity. Yet in addition to the slew of other ensuing problems, over pumping the Central Valley’s groundwater basic might lead to more earthquakes, according to Roland Burgmann, a University of California, Berkeley seismologist and co-author of a…

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A still frame of Steven Ward's computer simulation of the 2004 Sumatra tsunami. Credit: Steven Ward

From disaster to outreach

Sharing science in the days of YouTube Steven Ward has a pretty good trick. He can drop you right into the heart of a natural disaster and you’ll come out unscathed. Guaranteed. Tsunami? Earthquake? Volcanic explosion? He’ll even take requests. (more…)

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Top 5 Science Stories of 2012 According to Reddit

2012 was a big year for science. From tiny particles to worlds millions of miles away, there were a lot of science stories worth reading. Here is a compilation of the top five of the year, according to the point-score given by users of Reddit.com. For each major story I’ve made a useful infographic to…

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