Predicting the Unpredictable : : The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction / / Susan Elizabeth Hough.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Hough, Susan Elizabeth,
• TeilnehmendeR: Hough, Susan Elizabeth.
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2016]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.) :; 36 halftones. 4 line illus. 4 maps.

An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it's the catastrophic 2010 quake that took a devastating toll on the island nation of Haiti or a future great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in California, which scientists know is inevitable. Yet despite rapid advances in earthquake science, seismologists still can't predict when the Big One will hit. Predicting the Unpredictable explains why, exploring the fact and fiction behind the science-and pseudoscience-of earthquake prediction. Susan Hough traces the continuing quest by seismologists to forecast the time, location, and magnitude of future quakes. She brings readers into the laboratory and out into the field-describing attempts that have raised hopes only to collapse under scrutiny, as well as approaches that seem to hold future promise. She also ventures to the fringes of pseudoscience to consider ideas outside the scientific mainstream. An entertaining and accessible foray into the world of earthquake prediction, Predicting the Unpredictable illuminates the unique challenges of predicting earthquakes.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the Paperback Edition -- 1. Ready to Rumble -- 2. Ready to Explode -- 3. Irregular Clocks -- 4. The Hayward Fault -- 5. Predicting the Unpredictable -- 6. The Road to Haicheng -- 7. Percolation -- 8. The Heyday -- 9. The Hangover -- 10. Highly Charged Debates -- 11. Reading the Tea Leaves -- 12. Accelerating Moment Release -- 13. On the Fringe -- 14. Complicity -- 15. Measles -- 16. We All Have Our Faults -- 17. The Bad One -- 18. Whither Earthquake Prediction? -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- General Index -- Index of Earthquakes by Year