Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest

By Sandi Doughton

Scientific reportage on what we know and don’t know about the mega-earthquake predicted to hit the Pacific Northwest
 
Scientists have identified Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver as the urban centers of what will be the biggest earthquake—the Really Big One—in the continental United States. A quake will happen—in fact, it’s actually overdue. The Cascadia subduction zone is 750 miles long, running along the Pacific coast from Northern California up to southern British Columbia.
 
In this fascinating book, The Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton introduces readers to the scientists who are dedicated to understanding the way the earth moves and describes what patterns can be identified and how prepared (or not) people are. With a 100% chance of a mega-quake hitting the Pacific Northwest, this fascinating book reports on the scientists who are trying to understand when, where, and just how big The Big One will be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781570618550

Sandi Doughton

Sandi Doughton is an award-winning science and writer for The Seattle Times and the author of Full Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. Doughton has been covering science, health, and the environment in the Pacific Northwest for more than twenty years. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Reviews for Full-Rip 9.0

[pbirch01 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a thorough overview of the history, preparedness, and physics of the next major earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. In this book, Doughton spends time getting into the details of various aspects surrounding seismology geographically confined to the Pacific Northwest. What starts as an interesting premise quickly devolves into a book with no real direction overloaded with colloquialisms. Doughton writes this book for people, specifically homeowners, who live in Seattle and ideally were here in the 2001 Nisqually quake. There is a lot of information that could be interesting to non-residents but that is never the focus. I have never been to Japan but an overview of Fukushima pre- and post-tsunami could potentially be quite interesting. This book does contain some useful information but I would be prepared to skip large sections of this book unless you happen to live in Seattle.

[jedr-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This a book that everyone living in Cascadia should read. The author does an incredible job of explaining the fascinating geology of the Pacific Northwest and the unavoidable seismic hazards of the region. Its a non dramatized picture (yet still enjoyable to read) of what science really knows (and doesn't know) about the history of earthquakes and tsunamis in the region and of the underlying geophysics that has driven these events. Lots to learn from recent large quakes in Japan and Chile. The Pacific Northwest region is relatively unprepared at this point, but we can do much better if more people are made aware of the real risks and join together to make preperation a high priority for our government and society.

[addunn3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well written exploration of earthquake science. The first 2/3 of book covers the science through time and how scientists have been able to determine when quakes have occurred in the past and what the future holds for the NW. The last 1/3 was less informative, but did bring home the need for preparing for the next Big One.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Subtitle: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest"No one in the past three hundred years has witnessed a Cascadia megaquake, Not a single soul in the past millennium has weathered a rupture on the Seattle Fault. But hundreds of thousands of people across the Northwest have stories to tell about the third type of earthquake that strikes the region: deep quakes like the one that struck between Olympia and Seattle in 2001"Now that we're leaving Seattle I am letting to the forefront my earthquake fears, which have been bubbling subconsciously during the 30+ years we have lived here. This book will set no one's fears to rest. It is a history of the geologic and scientific discoveries of the last 30-40 years which have deepened our knowledge of past and potential earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest, otherwise known as the Cascadia subduction zone. There are explanations as to why future earthquakes in this area are likely to be much more powerful and have more dire consequences than quakes in any other part of the continental United States. While no one knows for sure, the consensus belief is that the Pacific Northwest is due or overdue for either a subduction quake or a fault quake, either of which would be devastating, rather than the more run of the mill deep quakes, which are the only kind that have occurred in recorded history here. There's also lots of information about tsunamis, and a discussion about the building code requirements that have been put into place for earthquake protection and whether they will in fact be effective should (or when) a megaquake occurs.This book probably would appeal to a limited readership, but I found it informative and chilling.3 stars