This course is a survey of the growth of those sciences concerned with the description, explanation, and prediction of earthquakes. Primarily, these are structural geology, a subdiscipline of geology, and seismology, a subdiscipline of geophysics. To oversimplify: the former is the study, in part, of the phenomena of rock structures, including the description and analysis of faults; the latter is a study of the phenomena of earthquakes through the analysis of wave phenomena. Both sciences depend upon mechanistic explanations of phenomena. The purpose of this course will be to examine, historically, the construction of mechanistic explanations of earthquakes, and attempts to predict earthquakes and to mitigate the damage caused by earthquakes, especially in urban environments. No advanced knowledge of modern sciences will be assumed.

The scope of the course will be broad with respect to time, covering roughly the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Although our dominant focus will be upon American science, politics, and society, we will have good reason to look to European science and to Asian science.

I will direct my lecture on Tuesday of each week toward major themes and relatively uncontroversial historical facts. On Thursdays, both our focus and our procedure will change. You should come to class prepared to discuss the readings, and to make contributions to the work of historical interpretation. Grades will be based on a mid-term, in-class exam (25%); a short paper due the final week of the course (25%); and a final exam (40%). I shall provide details on each due course. In addition, there will be two 20-minute quizzes, each worth 5% of the final grade; these will be spaced strategically through the quarter. Please do not undervalue these quizzes -- use them as a measure of your understanding of concepts, individuals, and institutions.

1. (April 4, 6) Introduction

Reading: Earthquake preparedness (from the telephone directory).

2. (April 11, 13) 17th century earthquakes

Reading: Selections from Robert Hooke, [1705], Lectures and discourses of earthquakes and subterraneous eruptions and from Voltaire, [1759] Candide.

3. (April 18, 20) Causal geology in the 18th and 19th centuries

Reading: Mott T. Greene, 1982, Geology in the Nineteenth Century: Changing Views of a Changing World, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

4. (April 25, 27) Causal geology in the 19th century

Reading: Mott Greene, Geology in the Nineteenth Century; description of the New Madrid earthquake (1811, 1812).

5. (May 2) Stress, Strain, and San Francisco

Reading: Selections from A. C. Lawson, 1908, The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906. Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.

(May 4) Midterm exam

6. (May 9, 11) Seismology

Reading: Selections from Beno Gutenberg and Charles F. Richter, 1954, Seismicity of the Earth and Related Phenomena, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press; Judith Goodstein, 1984, Waves in the earth: seismology comes to southern California. Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 14: 201-230.

7. (May 16, 18) Asian seismology

Reading: Description of the Tokyo earthquake of 1923; Homer LeGrand, 1988, Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories: The Modern Revolution in Geology and Scientific Change, Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press.

8. (May 23, 25) Causal geology in the 20th Century

Reading: Finish Homer LeGrand, Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories; description of the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

9. (May 30, June 1) Prognostication

Reading: Panel on Earthquake Prediction of the Committee on Seismology, 1976, Predicting Earthquakes: A Scientific and Technical Evaluation -- with Implications for Society, Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences; description of the San Fernando earthquake (1971).

10. (June 1) Conclusion

Reading: To be announced