The Politics of Earthquake Prediction

In: Princeton Legacy Library

Abstract

The Politics of Earthquake Prediction is a suspenseful account of what happens when scientists predict an enormous earthquake for a specific day--an earthquake that did not, in this instance, happen, but which, if it had, would have been one of the most destructive of our century. Working in a field where uncertainty abounds, Dr. Brian Brady of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and Dr. William Spence of the U.S. Geological Survey gradually came to the conclusion that a catastrophic quake would occur on June 28, 1981, off the coast of central Peru, near the great population center of Lima-Call.