Northwestern University
Giant Earthquakes: Why, Where, When and What We Can Do
On December 26, 2004 the world saw yet again the incredible power of giant earthquakes. An area of rock under the Indian Ocean, about the size of the state of California, shifted by 30 feet. This shift generated a massive sea wave that crossed the Indian Ocean in a few hours, wreaking destruction along seacoasts and causing at least 300,000 deaths. The energy released was far greater than the largest nuclear weapons.
December's earthquake was one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. Such giant earthquakes have happened before: 100 years ago much of San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake far smaller than the Indian Ocean one. They will happen again. Seismologists are working to understand the physics of such earthquakes and learn how to live with them.
In fact, we can't live without them.
This is because giant earthquakes are part of plate tectonics, the process that keeps our planet and us alive. They occur primarily at the boundaries between the great plates that make up earth's outer shell. Heat from inside the earth makes plates move - at about the speed fingernails grow - while their boundaries are locked. Every few hundred years, the motion on part of a boundary is released in a giant earthquake. This destruction is the price we pay for plate tectonics, which also keeps us alive. Plate tectonics also creates volcanoes, which replenish the atmosphere we breathe and keeps the earth warm enough for us to live on. The processes of plate tectonics provided the conditions needed for life to evolve and survive.
We haven't learned to predict when giant earthquakes will happen. Thus the best we can do is build our societies to minimize the damage from earthquakes. This can be done by earthquake resistant construction, systems to warn of imminent tsunami waves, and other measures. Deciding how to do this is a challenging and important task.
About Dr. Stein
Education
Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, Geophysics, 1978
S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Earth and Planetary Sciences, 1975
Positions Held
Professor, Northwestern University, 1987-
Associate Professor, Northwestern University, 1983-1987
Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, 1979-1983
Dr. Seth Stein's research interests are in earthquake seismology, plate tectonics, and space geodesy. Much of his research focuses on how plate tectonics works and how it causes earthquakes. He was one of the developers of a global model showing how fast plates move, which is crucial to understanding where and when large earthquakes occur. He has also been involved with testing such models using the Global Positioning System satellites, which can see motions in a few years rather than over millions of years. He and his wife have used seafloor and satellite data to study the heat coming from the earth that causes plate motions and thus earthquakes. Beyond purely scientific issues, he is interested in questions of formulating public policy to mitigate earthquake hazards and has worked extensively with news media to improve public understanding of earth science.
Professor Stein was one of the organizers of EarthScope, a new national initiative to dramatically advance our knowledge of the structure and evolution of North America. He served as Scientific Director of UNAVCO, the consortium of universities using GPS for earth science, and been Visiting Senior Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He has also been active in earth science education. He is a coauthor of a widely used seismology textbook, started Northwestern's Environmental Science program, and published papers on teaching methods. He has advised many Ph.D. students, four of which have received outstanding paper awards from the American Geophysical Union.
He was awarded the James B. Macelwane Medal of American Geophysical Union, been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and Geological Society of America, and named to the Institute for Scientific Information Highly Cited Researchers list. He has also edited books about plate boundary zones, the Mesozoic Pacific, intraplate earthquakes, and authored more than 100 scientific publications.
Books
Stein, S., and J. Freymueller, (eds), Plate Boundary Zones, American Geophysical Union, 2002.
Stein, S., and M. Wysession, Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes, and Earth Structure, Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Stein, S., and S. Mazzotti, (eds), Continental intraplate earthquakes: science, hazard, and policy issues, Geological Society of America Monograph, expected publication date, 2006.
Selected General Interest Publications
Stein, S. and E. A. Okal, The 2004 Sumatra earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami: what happened and why, The Earth Scientist, 21, 6-11, 2005.
Stein, S. and J. Tomasello, When safety costs too much, New York Times, January 10, 2004.
Stein, S., No free lunch, Seis. Res. Lett., 75, 555-556, 2004.
Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications
Stein, S. and E. Okal, Seismicity and tectonics of the Ninetyeast Ridge area: evidence for internal deformation of the Indian plate, J. Geophys. Res., 83, 2233-2246, 1978.
Stein, S., J. Engeln, C. DeMets, R. Gordon, D. Woods, D. Argus, P. Lundgren, C. Stein, and D. Wiens, The Nazca-South America convergence rate and the recurrence of the great 1960 Chilean earthquake, Geophys. Res. Lett., 13, 713-716, 1986.
DeMets, C., R. G. Gordon, D. F. Argus, and S. Stein, Current plate motions, Geophys. J., 101, 425-478, 1990.
Norabuena, E., L. Leffler-Griffin, A. Mao, T. Dixon, S. Stein, I. S. Sacks, L. Ocala and M. Ellis, Space geodetic observations of Nazca-South America convergence along the Central Andes, Science, 279, 358-362, 1998.
Newman, A., S. Stein, J. Weber, J. Engeln, A. Mao, and T. Dixon, Slow deformation and low seismic hazard at the New Madrid seismic zone, Science, 284, 619-621, 1999.
A. Newman, J. Schneider, S. Stein, and A. Mendez, Uncertainties in seismic hazard maps for the New Madrid Seismic Zone, Seis. Res. Lett., 72, 653-667, 2001.
Stein, S. and E. A. Okal, Speed and size of the Sumatra earthquake, Nature, 434, 581-582, 2005.
