How would hazard awareness translate to action in communities, such as around the New Madrid Fault Zone?
DA: Probably the most important way is through the building code process. There are three things that USGS does with respect to earthquake hazards: monitoring, targeted research and hazard assessment. That’s a prediction of the likelihood of shaking over a 30-year or 50-year period at different frequencies and so forth. We don’t have a national building code, there’s no federal building code that is forced upon everybody. So as a result you get quite a range of adoptions. The national seismic hazard map is our flagship product. And that gets translated into model building codes that get adopted by local jurisdictions. It gives a snapshot of what is likely to be faced in the lifetime of buildings. In the central United States, we saw a shift initially toward greater awareness and improved building codes, but Memphis [Tenn., near the epicenter of the 1811 and 1812 New Madrid earthquakes] recently adopted a lower building code and this is the challenge with the hazards: How to keep the ha
Related Questions
- Why do people always talk about the Hayward Fault specifically as a hazard instead of other Bay Area faults like the San Andreas Fault?
- How would hazard awareness translate to action in communities, such as around the New Madrid Fault Zone?
- What is the probability that an EQ will occur in the New Madrid Fault Zone?
