Review: The Great Quake Debate: The Crusader, the Skeptic, and the Rise of Modern Seismology, by Susan Hough

Abstract

The “Great Quake Debate” involved leading seismologists arguing publicly in the early twentieth century over the earthquake risk of Southern California. On one side: Bailey Willis, who (in)famously warned in 1925 that the region could see a significant, damaging quake in the next decade. On the other: Robert Thomas Hill, tempering those fears based on seismological precepts of the day: area earthquake activity was lower than in the geological past, well-made buildings fared reasonably well, earthquakes “immunized” an area against further shocks for a time, large and damaging shaking does not occur very far from an epicenter. Arguments began after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, grew heated in the 1910s, and flared after the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake and the tragic 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam. The debate ended decisively after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, when rule-makers strengthened building codes and Southern California began to recognize and prepare for potentially dangerous earthquakes. The Great Quake Debate chronicles the course and impact of these scientific arguments by tracing the lives of the two main participants.The author, Susan Hough, is a former president of the Seismological Society of America and research geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey who studies earthquake hazards and writes about earthquake history. Hough has frequently drawn upon historical records and has written well-received prior books on the history of seismology. Hough is also a frequent public commentator (she tweets at @SeismoSue).In this book, Hough brings to bear her long experience in public-facing seismology to help readers understand the origins of the current field and its public role. As Hough points out, American seismology emerged out of conversations between a relatively small group, many of them men whose lives had been shaped by the Civil War. Indeed, a thread running through the book is the role of wars in American science. Hough emphasizes the importance of oil production in Southern California money and politics, as well as the influence of oil and gas production on the emerging modern science of earthquakes—and, as Hough points out in a fascinating section drawing in part on her own research on induced seismicity in the oilpatch, potentially the occurrence of earthquakes themselves.Continuing nineteenth-century patterns, scientists in the early twentieth century commonly went back and forth between commercial, academic, and governmental positions. In the background of their work was always the quiet but powerful role of insurance companies in determining policy on building codes and influencing public conversation on earthquake risk. Hough lays out the challenges—for scientists at the time and now—of balancing accurate warning against the dangers of over-hype.In the end, the book assumes some familiarity with the debate. Readers new to this history may at times lose the big picture amid rich biographical texture. Yet The Great Quake Debate gives all readers—historians, scientists, and interested non-experts—excellent insights into the unfolding of scientific community and scientific investigations of earthquakes in the United States, a topic crucial to public and private life then, and still.