Word: toksoz
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...today more sophisticated systems can alert people as much as a minute before a city starts to shake. "This is possible," explains Massachusetts Institute of Technology geophysicist M. Nafi Toksoz, "because seismic waves propagate through the earth's crust relatively slowly, 5 to 8 km/sec. With an extensive network of sensors, we can locate the epicenter and determine the magnitude of an earthquake. This gives us the opportunity to warn people in outlying areas." How long a warning depends on the distance from the epicenter. Had such a system been in place in Mexico, for example, residents of Mexico City...
...California, an effective system could require thousands of sensors along various high-risk faults, linked by sophisticated systems for transmitting data. It would all have to run automatically by computer, says Hiroo Kanamori of Caltech's Seismological Laboratory: "There is no room for human uncertainty or hesitation." Toksoz believes a comprehensive system could be developed over a five-year period for $100 million. A 1991 report produced for the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the Federal Government build a prototype system, but so far, nothing has been implemented...
Most scientists are disturbed by the lack of solid evidence to support that dramatic prediction. Veteran Seismologist Charles Richter of Caltech, famed for his earthquake-intensity scale, calls the thesis "pure astrology in disguise. In fact, it is very close to pure fantasy." Says M.I.T. Geophysicist M. Nafi Toksoz: "I'm not going into a bunker or anything like that when all the planets line up." Even those who concede the possible validity of some of the effects -the connection, say, between solar flare-ups and global climate-were highly skeptical about The Jupiter Effect. Don Anderson, director...
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