Hayes

Now, the Sendai quake in Japan was considered one of the five strongest since 1900. It was so powerful, in fact that it moved the main island of Japan eight feet. This is just one of the 1.3 million earthquakes that occur around the globe each year. The largest ever recorded here in North America: Anchorage, Alaska, 1964. A 9.1. The earth shook for five straight minutes. The energy release was the equivalent of 10 million atom bombs the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima. And that's not the biggest earthquake ever recorded. No, the biggest was four years earlier off the coast of Valdivia in Southern Chile. A 9.5 on the Richter scale, right there. Bam. This quake lasted 11 minutes and spawned a tsunami, 82 feet high, that leveled Hilo, Hawaii, 8,000 miles away. Eight thousand miles away. So, um... It's mass destruction like this that shows just how important the research that we're doing here is, because we need to be able to predict these things. right? To plan and prepare for them. Yes, ma'am?

Professor, do you think something that intense could happen here?

Hayes

Well, the San Andreas fault runs right up the spine of California. It's the demarcation line between two tectonic plates that are constantly moving. Add to that the fact that it's supposed to happen every 150 years, and we're about 100 years overdue... I'd say it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.