The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith

This is a very different,but nonetheless,an excellent book about earthquakes.What is it like to live in an active earthquake zone? Well,the author does, and tells us what it is like and how he rationalizes it all with himself. He shares these personal feelings with us and leaves one( particularly one who does not live there) with the feeling of what it is like to have the threat hanging always over your head;that a big one could happen at any time. You don't know where,when or how powerful;the only thing is, that they are certain to come.Most importantly ;if you do live there....life must go on,and we'll deal with it all when it happens. David covers a lot of ground in this book. Some reviewers have suggested that it is disjointed and somewhat chaotic in the way it is written.I can see what they mean,but isn't that appropriate for a book dealing with a subject as disjointed and chaotic as earthquakes? He gives a ton of details about earthquakes in California and even some idea of how they tie into earthquakes around the world. He fairly extensively covers the whole business of trying to predict earthquakes,why they occur and what is really known about them and why their prediction is so difficult.He covers the many theories and shows that just as some concensus starts to gel,a new earthquake occurs,that completely ignores the theory. Concensus is not science,no matter how many agree. Statements abound throughout the book that fit the study of earthquakes,such as; "heard it somewhere,from someone else along the never-ending daisy chain of myth.", "the unpredictability of earthquake prediction",when it comes to observation,what we look for is what we get","earthquakes will always confound our expectations,no matter what we think we know","and most poignent of all; "To find out,you'd have to ask the San Andreas,and the San Andreas keeps its secrets close." Another very interesting book about earthquakes is "A Dangerous Place" by Mark Reisner for which I wrote a review on September 9,2004 .These two books complement each other. There is, however, a shortcoming in each book.Reisner's book has maps and many photographs,but lacks an index or any references.Ulin's book lacks maps,illustrations and photos,also no references,but does include an extensive index. Finally,both books refrain from making any specific predictions,but after reading them,you can understand why. Ulin does point us to web sites of Berkland (SYZYGZ0 )and Cloud Man. These men who have fairly accurate recent records of good predictions. Cloud Man predicted the Hector Mine earthquake on the fault Lavic Lake,long considered to be dormant A system that,until 1999,had remained quiet for longer than human civilization existed on earth. It was predicted 2 months before it happened and posted on his web site. It was the forth largest Southern California temblor of the twentieth century,coming in at a magnitude of 7.0. m

This book represents the best in crossover nonfiction, a blend of scientific fact and intuitive speculation. Ulin's style mixes academic science with geopoetic imagery, pulling evidence and anecdote about earthquake predictability from both historic fact and personal experience. In certain moments when fact and personal intuition collide--or converge--the line is never straight, or predictable. "I started to think about the fault that ran beneath this pavement, wondering what would happen if it slipped...All of a sudden, I felt like I'd been given a set of signs, like a trapdoor had opened to expose the real California, the wild and elemental territory of our nightmares and our dreams. I looked around: life went on as normal. Club kids hung out in front of the Rainbow and the Roxy, while traffic moved past on Sunset at a crawl. In my head, though, it was as if reality itself had started to slip, as if somewhere out on the boulevard, I'd been put in touch with some kind of strange, intuitive logic, and it was telling me tonight's the night" (112). While Californians do, in fact, inhabit shaky ground, the broader question Ulin asks is how any person, anywhere, makes sense out of his or her place in the universe.

David Ulin, writer and Angelino, has the same needs as anyone else living in southern California, including the need to somehow come to grips with life in earthquake country. The Myth Of Solid Ground is the extended version of his physical and intellectual wanderings on the way to learning to become comfortable with quakes. Early in the book, Mr. Ulin, NOT a science writer, starts to veer into 4 or 3 star review territory when he spends a lot of time interviewing earthquake predictors and shows less skepticism than I usually like to read about, but I hung in with the book and found Ulin's conclusions satisfactory for a layperson. Ulin eventually discusses his meetings with many of the scientists currently involved with earthquake prediction [including telegenic Lucy Jones and hirsute Allan Lindh] and visits Parkfield, California, earthquake capitol of the world, BEFORE it finally had its long-awaited 6.0 earthquake [September 28, 2004 - after the publication of the book]. Ultimately, Ulin's son Noah seems to have the best answer for dealing with earthquakes [I won't spoil the end of the book by telling you how Noah deals with a quake, but I will say it's very close to how I deal with quakes]. Despite my early misgivings about the book, ultimately all the material hung together as an interesting and informative narrative and I do recommend the book.