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American Morning
California Earthquake
Aired December 23, 2003 - 09:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get a scientific perspective now on yesterday's quake. We're joined by Russ Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey, and he is in Menlo Park, California this morning.
Mr. Stein, nice on see you. Thanks for joining us this morning. Sure appreciate it.
RUSS STEIN, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: Sure.
O'BRIEN: 6.5 on the Richter Scale. Does that count as a moderate quake, or is that considered a large quake?
STEIN: Well, it's a major quake, and California experiences earthquakes of this size every five or 10 years. And most of them are benign because they occur in rural areas, and some are lethal, such as the 1995 North Ridge shock, which occurred in a densely populated site.
O'BRIEN: And certainly, as we look at some of these pictures of the damage, it is pretty amazing. Considering it's the holiday time, many people were out and about shopping, that more were not killed in this either quake. Do you agree? Do you see that when you take a look at these pictures?
STEIN: Well, it's great that that's the case. And the reason is that this is an isolated area. The Hearst Castle is probably the best known structure out here. And because of that, there were really no tall buildings that were strongly shaken or major structures that were influenced.
O'BRIEN: Major city, of course, if that had been the center of the quake, you could predict a major disaster with a quake this strong?
STEIN: Well, earthquakes of this type and size do great damage when they occur in densely populated areas, because of the shaking that they cause, which is strong, and lasts for 10 or 12 or so seconds. So our concern, really, is to learn enough about this earthquake that we can give engineers the information they need to design buildings to resist this kind of shaking.
O'BRIEN: They describe earthquakes as deep or shallow. And identify read that shallow ones tend to inflict more damage. Why is that? That seems almost counterintuitive.
STEIN: Well, it's a tricky picture because some deep earthquakes bounce the seismic waves off deep layers in the Earth, and can do damage for quite a distance. Mexico City is strongly shaken by earthquakes several hundred miles away on the Pacific Coast.
Fortunately, we don't have that situation here. It's a shallow earthquake, which means it probably ruptured the surface of the either and offset roads and features like that. But basically, all of California earthquakes are shallow and do damage as a function of their size and their type.
O'BRIEN: Aftershocks now, I think the greatest one that's been measured so far is a 4.7. Do you expect more, or does it taper off over time, so that now we're, you know, 18 hours past the quake that they should be not experiencing many aftershocks at all?
STEIN: Well, you're right on both counts. They do taper off. But we do expect more. There's, in fact, about a 75 percent chance that we'll get a magnitude five or larger, which we haven't seen yet following this earthquake, but would be typical. On the other hand, there's about a 5 percent to 10 percent chance that this earthquake will be followed by something larger than magnitude 6.5.
O'BRIEN: Wow, that's scary news for the folks who I'm sure are very rattled in Paso Robles this morning.
Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it, Mr. Stein.
O'BRIEN: You bet.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 23, 2003 - 09:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get a scientific perspective now on yesterday's quake. We're joined by Russ Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey, and he is in Menlo Park, California this morning.
Mr. Stein, nice on see you. Thanks for joining us this morning. Sure appreciate it.
RUSS STEIN, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: Sure.
O'BRIEN: 6.5 on the Richter Scale. Does that count as a moderate quake, or is that considered a large quake?
STEIN: Well, it's a major quake, and California experiences earthquakes of this size every five or 10 years. And most of them are benign because they occur in rural areas, and some are lethal, such as the 1995 North Ridge shock, which occurred in a densely populated site.
O'BRIEN: And certainly, as we look at some of these pictures of the damage, it is pretty amazing. Considering it's the holiday time, many people were out and about shopping, that more were not killed in this either quake. Do you agree? Do you see that when you take a look at these pictures?
STEIN: Well, it's great that that's the case. And the reason is that this is an isolated area. The Hearst Castle is probably the best known structure out here. And because of that, there were really no tall buildings that were strongly shaken or major structures that were influenced.
O'BRIEN: Major city, of course, if that had been the center of the quake, you could predict a major disaster with a quake this strong?
STEIN: Well, earthquakes of this type and size do great damage when they occur in densely populated areas, because of the shaking that they cause, which is strong, and lasts for 10 or 12 or so seconds. So our concern, really, is to learn enough about this earthquake that we can give engineers the information they need to design buildings to resist this kind of shaking.
O'BRIEN: They describe earthquakes as deep or shallow. And identify read that shallow ones tend to inflict more damage. Why is that? That seems almost counterintuitive.
STEIN: Well, it's a tricky picture because some deep earthquakes bounce the seismic waves off deep layers in the Earth, and can do damage for quite a distance. Mexico City is strongly shaken by earthquakes several hundred miles away on the Pacific Coast.
Fortunately, we don't have that situation here. It's a shallow earthquake, which means it probably ruptured the surface of the either and offset roads and features like that. But basically, all of California earthquakes are shallow and do damage as a function of their size and their type.
O'BRIEN: Aftershocks now, I think the greatest one that's been measured so far is a 4.7. Do you expect more, or does it taper off over time, so that now we're, you know, 18 hours past the quake that they should be not experiencing many aftershocks at all?
STEIN: Well, you're right on both counts. They do taper off. But we do expect more. There's, in fact, about a 75 percent chance that we'll get a magnitude five or larger, which we haven't seen yet following this earthquake, but would be typical. On the other hand, there's about a 5 percent to 10 percent chance that this earthquake will be followed by something larger than magnitude 6.5.
O'BRIEN: Wow, that's scary news for the folks who I'm sure are very rattled in Paso Robles this morning.
Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it, Mr. Stein.
O'BRIEN: You bet.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
