The Biggest Little Contributions
2016; Seismological Society of America; Volume: 87; Issue: 2A Linguagem: Inglês
10.1785/0220160003
ISSN1938-2057
Autores Tópico(s)Seismic Waves and Analysis
ResumoAt about 10 p.m. on the first day of October 1915, some 200 km west of Reno, Nevada, the U.S.A.’s Biggest Little City, and 100 km or so north of our nation’s Loneliest Highway, the sky was cold and moonless. And in this particular location of the arid and sparsely settled Basin and Range, as is generally the case, absolutely nothing happened. The next day was different though. It was then, only nine years after the great 1906 California earthquake, that Nevada’s contributions to earthquake science began. After a couple of quite strong earthquakes in the late afternoon, things had apparently quieted down sufficiently for the residents of the little mining community of Kennedy, adjacent to a little valley called Pleasant, to consider safely retiring for the night. It was not to be. At about 10:50 p.m., a yet more violent shaking occurred. Those present who had also been through the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 were of the general opinion that “the Kennedy shake was more violent than that one” (Berry, 1916, 52). It was a big one. Now, 101 years later, the Pleasant Valley earthquake has given Nevada’s Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, reason to host the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Reno, Nevada. > It was then, only nine years after the great 1906 California earthquake, that Nevada’s contributions to earthquake science began. The Pleasant Valley earthquake is generally assigned a magnitude of 7.2. It is not the only large earthquake to have occurred in Nevada. The 1932 Cedar Mountain and the 1954 Dixie Valley–Fairview Peak and Fallon–Stillwater earthquake sequences registered similar magnitudes (see Fig. 1). As a Biggest Little City resident, in a state commanding less than 1% of the nation’s population, I am led to suggest that these historical …
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