=Geological effects.= Even great earthquakes seldom produce geological
effects of much importance. Landslides may be shaken down from the
sides of mountains and hills, and cracks may be opened in the surface
deposits of plains; but the transient shiver, which may overturn
cities and destroy thousands of human lives, runs through the crust
and leaves it much the same as before.
=Earthquakes attending great displacements.= Great earthquakes
frequently attend the displacement of large masses of the rocks of the
crust. In 1822 the coast of Chile was suddenly raised three or four
feet, and the rise was five or six feet a mile inland. In 1835 the
same region was again upheaved from two to ten feet. In each instance
a destructive earthquake was felt for one thousand miles along the
coast.
The great California earthquake of 1906.= A sudden dislocation
occurred in 1906 along an ancient fault plane which extends for 300
miles through western California. The vertical displacement did not
exceed four feet, while the horizontal shifting reached a maximum of
twenty feet. Fences, rows of trees, and roads which crossed the fault
were broken and offset. The latitude and longitude of all points over
thousands of square miles were changed. On each side of the fault the
earth blocks moved in opposite directions, the block on the east
moving southward and that on the west moving northward and to twice
the distance. East and west of the fault the movements lessened with
increasing distance from it.
This sudden slip set up an earthquake lasting sixty-five seconds,
followed by minor shocks recurring for many days. In places the jar
shook down the waste on steep hillsides, snapped off or uprooted
trees, and rocked houses from their foundations or threw down their
walls or chimneys. The water mains of San Francisco were broken, and
the city was thus left defenseless against a conflagration which
destroyed $500,000,000 worth of property. The destructive effects
varied with the nature of the ground. Buildings on firm rock suffered
least, while those on deep alluvium were severely shaken by the
undulations, like water waves, into which the loose material was
thrown. Well-braced steel structures, even of the largest size, were
earthquake proof, and buildings of other materials, when honestly
built and intelligently designed to withstand earthquake shocks,
usually suffered little injury. The length of the intervals between
severe earthquakes in western California shows that a great
dislocation so relieves the stresses of the adjacent earth blocks that
scores of years may elapse before the stresses again accumulate and
cause another dislocation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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