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The California-Made Earthquake Alarm That Works But California Won’t Build
For all of the devastation caused by the 2011 earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the former, a 9.0 magnitude beast called “Tohoku,” could have claimed far more lives. The reason it didn’t? Since 2007, Japan has had an early warning system — conceived 10 years ago at Caltech — which California still hasn’t managed to set up. And while it only gives about a minute notice, it’s a minute Californians currently don’t have.
Tracking Tremors: A Brief History Of The Richter Scale
In the study of natural disasters — be they tornadoes, hurricanes, snowpacolyses or Florida on a weekday — the event’s magnitude is just as vital to our understanding as its duration and frequency. Hurricanes and tornadoes are measured by class, blizzards along the Winter Wonderland-Killstorm demarcation. Earthquakes, of course, are measured by how much energy they release — a system better known as the Richter Scale.
Planning For The Next Sandy: Manhattan Building Installs $250,000 Gate
After Hurricane Sandy blew through New York in October, the lion’s share of media coverage focused on the beachfront where damage was most visible. In lower Manhattan though, the 3m storm surge took a subterranean toll, ruining millions of dollars worth of mechanical systems and forcing many developers to consider how they’d retrofit for the next big one.
Watch This Anti-Earthquake Table Shrug Off A Violent Simulated Tremor
It’s all but impossible to stop an entire building from shaking along with an earthquake, but that doesn’t mean you can’t protect what’s inside. Japan’s THK designs and builds these ‘seismic isolation tables’ which are able to counteract the violent movements of an earthquake on a smaller scale.
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