NCW Libraries

Earthquakes. You only need to worry about them if you're in San Francisco, right? Wrong. We have been making enormous changes to subterranean America, and Mother Earth, as always, has been making some of her own. The consequences for our real estate, our civil engineering, and our communities will be huge because they will include earthquakes most of us do not expect and cannot imagine. The era of human-induced earthquakes began in 1962 in Colorado,...

Compilation of adventures for explorers interested in the volcanic history of more than 80 South Cascadian volcanic sites.

This is the first book to really make sense of the dizzying array of information that has emerged in recent decades about earthquakes. Susan Hough, a research seismologist in one of North America's most active earthquake zones and an expert at communicating this complex science to the public, separates fact from fiction. She fills in many of the blanks that remained after plate tectonics theory, in the 1960s, first gave us a rough idea of just what...

For centuries, Californians and the Japanese have known that they were at risk of catastrophic earthquakes, and prepared accordingly. But when a violent 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti in 2010, hardly anyone knew the island nation was even at risk for disaster, and, tragically, no one was prepared. Over 300,000 people died as buildings that had never been designed to withstand such intense shaking toppled over and crushed their inhabitants. Now, scientists...

It is a prominent geological feature that is almost impossible to see unless you know where to look. Hundreds of thousands of people drive across it every day. The San Andreas Fault is everywhere, and primed for a colossal quake. For decades, scientists have warned that such a sudden shifting of the Earth's crust is inevitable. In fact, it is a geologic necessity. The San Andreas fault runs almost the entire length of California, from the redwood...

A chilling look at the massive earthquakes that could strike America at any moment Far beneath the earth's surface, great tectonic plates grind against one another with incredible pressure that must-inevitably-be released. Earthquakes manifest with little warning, upending buildings, shattering infrastructure, and unleashing devastating tsunamis. In this remarkable survey of the history of seismology and the extraordinary seismic events that have...

Laki is Iceland's largest volcano. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great, untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe. Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it...

Sur le plan scientifique, la géothermie s'attache à l'étude du régime thermique du globe et aux mécanismes de transfert thermique — conductifs et convectifs. Elle tente d'intégrer l'ensemble des données géologiques, géochimiques et géophysiques dans des modèles satisfaisants. Abstraction faite ...

What are the Decade Volcanoes, and are they going to kill us? There's no quick and easy answer to that question, other than "dangerous" and "maybe." This new and improved second edition, like the original, will help you get started on your own investigation into these beautiful but hazardous fire mountains. It explains what the 1990s Decade Volcano program was and why it got started. Then you'll meet the sixteen volcanoes (seventeen, actually,...

Le 24 août de l'an 79 après J.-C., le Vésuve se réveilla au terme d'un repos de plusieurs siècles et détruisit les villes d'Herculanum, de Pompéi et de Stabiès. En 1783, l'éruption fissurale du Laki, en Islande, entraîna la mort de plus de 10 000 personnes par ses flots de lave et ses projections...