The Great Alaska Earthquake, also known as the Good Friday quake, left behind a graphic tutorial in the power of plate tectonics, which was then still mostly a theory. In all, at least 129 people died, mostly from landslides and huge waves. The tsunami that followed was a lethal punch, drowning at least one coastal village in Alaska, nearly overwhelming others. The quake shook Seattle’s Space Needle, more than 1,400 miles to the south, and rattled many parts of California. Penney, the city’s cherished department store, was largely rubble. Much of downtown Anchorage looked like “the devil ground his heel into it,” as one reporter wrote. Beaches became cliffs, and cliffs flattened into beaches. Large buildings were knocked from their foundations, houses slipped and crumbled, sidewalks and sewer mains twisted and broke apart. Measuring 9.2 in magnitude, the megathrust quake shook the ground for more than four minutes, as 600 miles of fault ruptured and moved up nearly 60 feet in places. It’s unlikely that anything close to Muir’s exuberance was heard in Alaska on March 27, 1964, when the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America remade the topography of the fledgling Last Frontier State. “A noble earthquake!” he shouted in wobble-legged joy. THIS IS CHANCE! The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together By Jon MooallemĪ thrill junkie who embraced every tempest of nature, John Muir was in Yosemite in 1872 when an earthquake made him feel like a sailor on the deck of a sea-tossed ship.
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