The big one : the earthquake that rocked early America and helped create a science / Jake Page and Charles Officer.

Author
Page, Jake [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Description
xii, 239 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
ReCAP - Remote StorageQE535.2.U6 P34 2004 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    "In the early 1800s a series of gargantuan earth tremors seized the American frontier. Tremendous roars and flashes of eerie light accompanied huge spouts of water and gas. Six-foot-high waterfalls appeared in the Mississippi River, thousands of trees exploded, and some 1,500 people - in what was then a sparsely populated wilderness - were killed. A region the size of Texas, centered in Missouri and Arkansas, was rent apart, and the tremors reached as far as Montreal. Forget the 1906 earthquake - this set of quakes constituted the Big One." "Jake Page and Charles Officer rely on historical accounts and the latest scientific findings to tell a long-forgotten story in which the naturalist John James Audubon, the Shawnee chief Tecumsch, scientists, and charlatans all play roles."--BOOK JACKET.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (p. [217]-223) and index.
    Contents
    • Introduction : Reelfoot's folly
    • Pt. 1. The new Madrid quakes
    • 1. The world gone mad
    • 2. Dreams, omens, and war
    • 3. Pendulums and polymaths
    • Pt. 2. The earthquakes hunters
    • 4. Myths, maps, and machines
    • 5. Finding faults
    • 6. Intensity, magnitude, and stars
    • 7. Geophysical leaps forward
    • Pt. 3. Looking back, looking forward
    • 8. Rifts, plumes, and reservoirs
    • 9. The art of prediction
    • 10. False prophets
    • 11. New Madrid redux.
    ISBN
    0618341501
    LCCN
    2004040536
    OCLC
    54001405
    RCP
    C - S
    Statement on language in description
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