Virtual OMSI Science Pub: Our Gold Rush Past and Seismic Future

JULY 21, 2020 | Virtual Edition | 6:30-8:30PM | $5 suggested donation (www.omsi.edu/donate)

How the Gold Rush and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Enabled Us to Divine our Seismic Future with Ross S. Stein, PhD, CEO and Co-Founder Temblor, Inc., Redwood City, California

Almost everything we love about the San Francisco Bay area is brought to us by the faults. Absent the San Andreas and Hayward faults, there would be no San Francisco Bay, the only deep protected harbor on the California coast, and so the wellspring of the Gold Rush. The Hayward fault lifts up the Berkeley and Oakland Hills, with their magnificent sunset views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The San Gregorio fault makes Big Sur ‘big.’ A bend in the San Andreas fault thrusts up the Santa Cruz Mountains, the spine of the peninsula, and the Marin headlands. These coastal ranges temper the climate, bathe us in fog, and crown us in Redwoods. What I want you to see is that we enjoy the fruits of the faults every day. And so, we must learn to live with their occasional spoils—as befell the San Francisco Bay area in 1868, most famously in 1906, and 1989. You will see that while we can’t predict earthquakes, we know where and why the hazard is high. And we know how to erect buildings that can withstand anything the faults can hurl at them. During this presentation, we’ll move from the discovery of gold to the discovery of what an earthquake is, and how quakes interact, illustrated with four different demos. And, I’ll leave you with the means to assess your own seismic risk, to ensure the safety of your own family.

How to watch the event: Visit https://www.facebook.com/omsi.museum/live/ or join us on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/omsimuseum

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