-Caveat Lector-
The "lemming" instinct, or a collective death-wish, must drive
"Civilization."
"The zones of greatest earthquake risk contain half the world's largest
cities."
Scientists Release Earthquake Map
By MATTHEW FORDAHL
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Much of the world's population lives on potentially
shaky ground, scientists said after releasing the first map detailing the
entire planet's earthquake hazard zones.
The ominously colorful document offers few surprises: Southern California,
southeastern Hawaii, Turkey, Taiwan, Iceland and the India-China border are
most likely to experience strong shaking in the future.
``Active tectonics make outstanding scenery and people want to live there,''
said Kaye Shedlock of the U.S. Geological Survey. ``You just have to
recognize what your hazards are.''
The map, developed by 500 scientists over seven years, offers developing
countries new information that can be used to update or establish building
codes. Some nations in Africa, for example, never compiled such data.
``We can say today that as a result of this program, more than half the
countries of the world have a new generation of seismic hazard maps,'' said
Domenico Giardini of the Swiss Seismological Service in Zurich.
As much as 15 percent of the planet's land is in zones of high or very high
hazard, which is defined as a 10 percent chance or greater of violent shaking
within the next 50 years, Shedlock said. Roughly 40 percent of the Earth's
land is considered low hazard.
Specifically, the map attempts to predict the probability of peak ground
acceleration, a force that is most likely to damage low-rise residential
buildings. Future maps are being compiled that will detail hazard areas for
larger structures like high-rises.
``This map only provides part of the story,'' Giardini said. ``You can easily
live in a high-risk area if you have a well-built house.''
In most cases, the hazardous areas are near faults that define the boundaries
of the Earth's tectonic plates. Entire continents and oceans ride on the
plates, which grind against, smash into or separate from each other,
producing quakes and volcanoes.
In California, the San Andreas Fault slices through the state where the
Pacific and North American plates meet. Turkey, which has been devastated by
several large quakes this year, is at the juncture of the Eurasian, African
and Arabian plates.
One of the largest red marks is along the India-China border, where India is
literally smashing into Asia, producing the still-growing Himalayas, the
tallest mountains in the world.
Hawaii, however, is a different story. The island in the middle of the
Pacific plate is prone to large quakes caused by underground volcano-related
collapses.
The greatest hazard areas, colored red or brown on the map, contain half the
world's largest cities. Efforts are now under way to determine exactly how
many people live in the most dangerous areas.
It will be up to individual governments to determine how to use the new
information. Developments planned in the most hazardous areas should receive
the closest scrutiny, the geologists said.
``If we've done our job right, the end result of this is going to be a lot
more detailed site-specific hazard maps,'' Shedlock said.
The map project was launched in 1992 by the International Lithosphere Program
with support from the United Nations' International Decade for Natural
Disaster Reduction. It was unveiled Dec. 14 at the fall meeting of the
American Geophysical Union here.
Researchers combined existing hazard maps, data from recent and historical
quakes as well as other records that stretch back 2,000 years. Biblical
passages were used for parts of the Middle East.
The work was easy in the United States, where the law requires hazard maps to
be updated every five years. It was much more difficult in less developed
countries, Giardini said.
The seismic hazards map can be accessed online at
http://seismo.ethz.ch/GSHAP/
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