Word: seismicity
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Despite a history of seismic activity in the region,* the authorities proved to be tragically unprepared. There were no disaster contingency plans and few resources for rapidly deploying rescue teams to the mountain hamlets. The necessary soldiers, firemen, medical supplies and heavy equipment had to be trucked in from military bases hundreds of miles to the north. "Beyond question, there have been serious official shortcomings," President Sandro Pertini charged during a grim, surprisingly outspoken address on television at midweek. "Those guilty of these failures must be made...
While such data have been used to foretell tremors accurately, they can also be misleading. Because the earth's geology varies greatly, rock in one place might behave in a much different way than rock does elsewhere. Also, monitoring seismic data requires networks of field stations that can automatically pipe information to central analysis points, something few countries can afford. In Italy and indeed throughout the Mediterranean region, predictions are complicated by yet another factor: the area is the meeting place of not just two plates but three or more. Italian Geophysicist Forese Wezel describes the region...
...their credit, Italian seismologists, who operate a national network of 54 seismic stations, had warned that a major quake might hit sometime after...
Using computers for seismic surveys, and new drilling technologies to dig deeper, geologists are looking everywhere, from the frozen Arctic to the jungles of Africa and South America. With bet-a-billion gusto, they are searching for new energy Eldorados...
...estimated to be about 40 years behind that found in the West. The standard Soviet turbodrill, for example, bores much more slowly than American equipment. It takes a Soviet team 14 months to dig down 10,000 ft.; U.S. drilling teams can reach that depth in 34 days. Seismic technology, essential for exploration, also lags far behind. The best Soviet gear probes down to 7,000 ft.; U.S. equipment is more accurate and goes down to at least 10,000 ft. Given the state of their industry, says Meyerhoff, "there is simply no way that the Soviets are going...