Synopses & Reviews
From the first earthquake David L. Ulin experienced in San Francisco at age eighteen, he was fascinated with the daily lives of Californians, who seem to be going about their business with just an occasional rumbling interruption. But these tectonic shifts could easily wreak cataclysmic havoc, just as they did in the great earthquake of 1906. In The Myth of Solid Ground, Ulin explores how an unlikely collection of scientists, psychics, and apocalyptics have made startlingly accurate earthquake predictions based on everything from magnetic fields to the behavior of whales. In the end, Ulin uses the world of earthquake prediction to explore the deep fault lines of belief and the human longing to hold control, no matter how misguided, over a mysterious and deadly phenomenon that is as much a part of California as speed, youth, and celebrity.
Synopsis
Earthquakes are one of the great unsolved geological mysteries. Attempts to predict them have ranged from studies of California’s fault lines by USGS geologists to the work of an odd assortment of psychics and apocalyptics who base their sometimes startlingly accurate forecasts on everything from changes in the earth’s magnetic fields to the behavior of whales. The Myth of Solid Ground is a journey, both personal and cultural, through the world of earthquakes and earthquake prediction, one that seeks a middle ground between science and superstition, while also looking for a larger context in which seismicity might make sense. An excellent primer on the science of seismology, The Myth of Solid Ground looks at earthquakes as the ultimate metaphor for living with impending disaster.
Synopsis
Earthquakes are one of the great unsolved geological mysteries. Attempts to predict them have ranged from studies of Californias fault lines by USGS geologists to the work of an odd assortment of psychics and apocalyptics who base their sometimes startlingly accurate forecasts on everything from changes in the earths magnetic fields to the behavior of whales. The Myth of Solid Ground is a journey, both personal and cultural, through the world of earthquakes and earthquake prediction, one that seeks a middle ground between science and superstition, while also looking for a larger context in which seismicity might make sense. An excellent primer on the science of seismology, The Myth of Solid Ground looks at earthquakes as the ultimate metaphor for living with impending disaster.
About the Author
David L. Ulin is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. His work has also appeared in GQ, the Nation, New York Times Book Review, and Atlantic Monthly. Ulin is the editor of two acclaimed anthologies of writing about Los Angeles, where he lives.
Table of Contents
Three April Earthquakes
The X-Files
A Brief History of Seismology
Earthquake Country
Before and After Science
Shaking All Over
East of Eden
The Unified Field Theory of Everything
The Myth of Solid Ground
Index