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Keeping the History in Historical Seismology: The 1872 Owens Valley, California Earthquake

Hough, Susan E. (2008) Keeping the History in Historical Seismology: The 1872 Owens Valley, California Earthquake. In: 2008 seismic engineering conference: commemorating the 1908 Messina and Reggio Calabria earthquake. AIP Conference Proceedings. No.1020. American Institute of Physics , Melville, NY, pp. 293-299. ISBN 978-0-7354-0542-4. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20160422-110431292

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Abstract

The importance of historical earthquakes is being increasingly recognized. Careful investigations of key pre‐instrumental earthquakes can provide critical information and insights for not only seismic hazard assessment but also for earthquake science. In recent years, with the explosive growth in computational sophistication in Earth sciences, researchers have developed increasingly sophisticated methods to analyze macroseismic data quantitatively. These methodological developments can be extremely useful to exploit fully the temporally and spatially rich information source that seismic intensities often represent. For example, the exhaustive and painstaking investigations done by Ambraseys and his colleagues of early Himalayan earthquakes provides information that can be used to map out site response in the Ganges basin. In any investigation of macroseismic data, however, one must stay mindful that intensity values are not data but rather interpretations. The results of any subsequent analysis, regardless of the degree of sophistication of the methodology, will be only as reliable as the interpretations of available accounts—and only as complete as the research done to ferret out, and in many cases translate, these accounts. When intensities are assigned without an appreciation of historical setting and context, seemingly careful subsequent analysis can yield grossly inaccurate results. As a case study, I report here on the results of a recent investigation of the 1872 Owen's Valley, California earthquake. Careful consideration of macroseismic observations reveals that this event was probably larger than the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and possibly the largest historical earthquake in California. The results suggest that some large earthquakes in California will generate significantly larger ground motions than San Andreas fault events of comparable magnitude.


Item Type:Book Section
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2963848DOIArticle
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/10.1063/1.2963848PublisherArticle
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Hough, Susan E.0000-0002-5980-2986
Additional Information:© 2008 American Institute of Physics. Published online 08 July 2008. I thank Karen Felzer, Jack Boatwright, Bill Bakun, Gary Fuis, Tousson Toppozada, Jim Evans, Andy Michael, and Brad Aagard for constructive feedback. I also gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of the Laws Railroad Museum and the Inyo County Historical Museum.
Subject Keywords:Historical earthquakes, earthquake hazard
Series Name:AIP Conference Proceedings
Issue or Number:1020
Classification Code:PACS: 91.30.Bi, 91.30.mv, 91.30.Px
DOI:10.1063/1.2963848
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20160422-110431292
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20160422-110431292
Official Citation:Keeping the History in Historical Seismology: The 1872 Owens Valley, California Earthquake Hough, Susan E., AIP Conference Proceedings, 1020, 293-298 (2008), DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2963848
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:66406
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Tony Diaz
Deposited On:22 Apr 2016 20:23
Last Modified:10 Nov 2021 23:57

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