Word: times
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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During the 1906 tremor, the plates on either side of the San Andreas lurched past each other by as much as 20 ft. Over time, such jumps add up. "In 30 million years," Berkeley seismologist Bruce Bolt says, "Los Angeles will become a new suburb of San Francisco...
Still, there is a vast difference between suggesting that an earthquake is likely to happen and pinpointing when. For now, scientists cannot say whether a specific section of the San Andreas fault will snap in one year's time or in a hundred, but they are working on it. Seismic silence is one clue. Soundings taken along the San Andreas over the past 15 years showed that the small earthquakes that are a daily event along other parts of the system were not occurring in the Santa Cruz mountains. Scientists argued over the significance of this blank spot...
...Andreas is unusual in that it is the Old Faithful of earthquake zones, generating moderate tremors every 20 to 27 years. The last Parkfield earthquake occurred in 1966, which means that the next one should strike between now and 1993. By keeping detailed track of underground changes over time, scientists hope to identify precise signals that an earthquake is imminent...
...size of an earthquake is determined partly by the length of the fault segment that slips. In addition, large earthquakes tend to be spaced further apart than small ones, since it takes a much longer time to accumulate sufficient stress. While scientists cannot say exactly where or when the next Big One will hit, they are not without hunches. Southern California, which has not had a Big One since 1857, is every seismologist's first...
...satellite technology is wonderful," says NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, "but it's made us hostage to our expectations that information can be instantaneous." Tuesday night was a reminder that there are limits to what even television can do when electricity and telephones and highways are knocked out. By the time most networks closed down for the night after five or six hours of coverage, San Jose and Santa Cruz were still disconcertingly cut off from contact, the scope of the tragedy on Oakland's I-880 was unknown, and it had been impossible for reporters to convey the full flavor...