1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,520
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcast,

2
00:00:02,560 --> 00:00:04,160
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear more than just this

3
00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: highlight from the show, become a Coast Insider and you

4
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:10,799
Speaker 1: can listen to the complete program, plus recent episodes about

5
00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:15,520
Speaker 1: out of body experiences, the scientific search for extraterrestrial life,

6
00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:18,960
Speaker 1: and biblical prophecies which may have foretold our current state

7
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:21,599
Speaker 1: of global turmoil. So head on over to Coast to

8
00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:23,680
Speaker 1: Coast a m dot com and sign up for Coast

9
00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:26,400
Speaker 1: Insider to catch up on what you may have missed

10
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:29,960
Speaker 1: from Coast to Coast. Now here's a highlight from Coast

11
00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:33,680
Speaker 1: to Coast AM on iHeart Radio. George Norri with you.

12
00:00:33,880 --> 00:00:37,240
Speaker 1: Dr Lucy Jones with US seismologists for the U S

13
00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:41,159
Speaker 1: Geological Survey for more than thirty years, most recently a

14
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:45,720
Speaker 1: science advisor for risk reduction. She created the Great Shakeout

15
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,520
Speaker 1: Drill that was an earthquake preparedness experiment that by two

16
00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen included fifty three million participants around the world.

17
00:00:55,080 --> 00:00:57,600
Speaker 1: She founded and as the chief scientists of the Dr

18
00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:01,360
Speaker 1: Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, a research associated

19
00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: cal Tech. She holds a PhD in geophysics from M

20
00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:07,000
Speaker 1: I T and a b A in Chinese Language and

21
00:01:07,080 --> 00:01:10,800
Speaker 1: Literature from Brown University. Dr Lucy Jones with us first

22
00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:14,000
Speaker 1: time on Coast of Coast. Lucy, Welcome, Thanks for having me.

23
00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:18,759
Speaker 1: How did you get involved in your interest in geophysics?

24
00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:22,560
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Well? I as a child. My

25
00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:26,360
Speaker 1: dad was an aerospace engineer and worked on the Apollo project.

26
00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:31,000
Speaker 1: We watched the Moon landing together and I told him,

27
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:34,240
Speaker 1: as pretentiously as only a child candid, I was going

28
00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,720
Speaker 1: to become an astrophysic. Of course, by the time I

29
00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:40,880
Speaker 1: got my degree, was pretty clear we weren't getting to

30
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:44,200
Speaker 1: the Moon anytime soon. And I also began to realize

31
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:47,400
Speaker 1: that physics was really in the seventies was mostly about

32
00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:51,360
Speaker 1: making bombs, and geophysics turned out to be about playing

33
00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:53,720
Speaker 1: in the mountains and getting paid for it. Does it

34
00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:56,480
Speaker 1: drive you nuts when you hear people say we never

35
00:01:56,520 --> 00:02:01,040
Speaker 1: went to the moon? Oh? Yeah, I mean it's you know,

36
00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:03,480
Speaker 1: one thing about being a scientist is you believe that

37
00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,880
Speaker 1: there is objective reality and you use your tools to

38
00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: try and understand what that is. And looking at all

39
00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:14,120
Speaker 1: the evidence, it's pretty clear what actually happened. Of course,

40
00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 1: I was there. I saw the Apollo, you know, went

41
00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:19,959
Speaker 1: to my dad's office and saw it and touched at

42
00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:23,239
Speaker 1: and it was a very real experience. And I knew

43
00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:26,000
Speaker 1: a couple of astronauts, Edgar Mitchell, the late Edgar Mitchell

44
00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:28,880
Speaker 1: being one, buzz Aldron. I know these guys went to

45
00:02:28,919 --> 00:02:32,200
Speaker 1: the Moon. I know it's uh, but I think there

46
00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:35,200
Speaker 1: is actually I sometimes think we need to wonder why

47
00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:39,280
Speaker 1: people are driven to refuse to believe that. It's, you know,

48
00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:43,399
Speaker 1: some deep psychological need is being satisfied or distrust. There's

49
00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:48,800
Speaker 1: distrust in government, I think, and that's unfortunate too. It's

50
00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:53,080
Speaker 1: you know, and I've always contended that if anything happened, uh,

51
00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:55,200
Speaker 1: you know, some of the pictures that were done on

52
00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:59,560
Speaker 1: the settings. I remember watching Walter Cronkite when this happened.

53
00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:02,160
Speaker 1: I was nine teen years old, and they had mock

54
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,240
Speaker 1: you know, they would have astronauts on a mock set

55
00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:07,960
Speaker 1: trying to show us what was happening on the moon.

56
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:11,360
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if some pictures like that got mixed in

57
00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:14,400
Speaker 1: with the real stuff and these people said, ah, they

58
00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:17,880
Speaker 1: never went Look. I don't think people who are saying

59
00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:21,000
Speaker 1: that need evidence. I think it is being driven more

60
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:24,240
Speaker 1: by psychological needs that could be out there that could

61
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:26,520
Speaker 1: be So tell me about the shakeout drill and how

62
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:29,080
Speaker 1: did you get fifty three million people around the world

63
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:32,560
Speaker 1: to become part of that. Well, it began much smaller

64
00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:36,720
Speaker 1: than that though. Um I was the scientist leading an

65
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:41,800
Speaker 1: effort called the shakeout scenario, which was trying to make

66
00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:44,800
Speaker 1: the science more usable by connecting it to what people

67
00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:47,680
Speaker 1: were really thinking about. So we have all our papers

68
00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:51,680
Speaker 1: about what's going on in various geophysical phenomenon, turn it

69
00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:55,080
Speaker 1: into a coherent picture of what the big earthquakes really

70
00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:58,080
Speaker 1: going to be like. And um we called it the

71
00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:01,520
Speaker 1: shakeout scenario. And there were some aspects of it that

72
00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:06,920
Speaker 1: we're surprising even to us, understanding how bad the fire

73
00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:11,080
Speaker 1: after the earthquakes we're going to be, for instance. And

74
00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:14,600
Speaker 1: we wanted to help people understand what was in there,

75
00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:17,680
Speaker 1: what they should really be concerned about, and we came

76
00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:20,000
Speaker 1: up with the Well we talked to social scientists and said,

77
00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:21,880
Speaker 1: how do we get people to do this? Yea, how

78
00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:24,400
Speaker 1: do we get them to listen? And one of the

79
00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:26,960
Speaker 1: strong messages is we needed to do something that you

80
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:31,120
Speaker 1: could see people getting ready for earthquakes, that the strong

81
00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,200
Speaker 1: human need that you do what you see other people doing.

82
00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:38,440
Speaker 1: The visual reinforcements important. So we came up with doing

83
00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:42,440
Speaker 1: practicing what's the best action during an earthquake, which is drop, cover,

84
00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:45,600
Speaker 1: hold on, meaning dropped to the ground before the earthquake

85
00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,919
Speaker 1: sends you there, hold onto something and you know, hopefully

86
00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:52,880
Speaker 1: haven't cover your head. And you know, that's a very

87
00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:56,680
Speaker 1: visual picture people jumping under their desk, and that would

88
00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,719
Speaker 1: show people getting ready for earthquakes. So we did it

89
00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:04,000
Speaker 1: for or that the shakeout scenario, and we tried to

90
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,960
Speaker 1: get it to as many people in southern California as possible,

91
00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:10,320
Speaker 1: about twenty million residents in the area, and we ended

92
00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:13,320
Speaker 1: up getting five million people participating in that first drill,

93
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:16,520
Speaker 1: and I was sort of like, great, we got them

94
00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:20,120
Speaker 1: to listen, and about the state went you could get

95
00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:23,000
Speaker 1: one quarter of the population to participate. Wow, we better

96
00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:26,920
Speaker 1: do this again. At which my first thought was over

97
00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,280
Speaker 1: my dead body, you know, a year this is enough.

98
00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:33,600
Speaker 1: But other people have really you know, wanted, stepped in

99
00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:36,479
Speaker 1: and helped put it together. A big part of it

100
00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:39,800
Speaker 1: is all uh internet driven, so we don't have to

101
00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:43,640
Speaker 1: talk individually to everybody we're engaging. It's they can sign

102
00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:47,400
Speaker 1: up through it, and as you know, California did it.

103
00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:51,680
Speaker 1: Other states noticed, Washington started doing it, Oregon, and then

104
00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:56,160
Speaker 1: you know, other states noticed, and then other countries started noticing.

105
00:05:56,200 --> 00:05:59,479
Speaker 1: And the fifty three million people is actually involving people

106
00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:04,240
Speaker 1: from around own the world. When Japan joined that was

107
00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:08,360
Speaker 1: a large group of people. And actually the Korea has

108
00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:12,840
Speaker 1: eight million people participating, mostly through their schools. And then

109
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:15,720
Speaker 1: actually Iran joined in. They have one of the biggest

110
00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:18,880
Speaker 1: earthquake risks in the world, and their schools have started

111
00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:22,000
Speaker 1: doing it too, and their buildings crumble pretty darn fast.

112
00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:24,920
Speaker 1: Don't think there's some pretty bad buildings there. Yes, Is

113
00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:31,159
Speaker 1: it my perception dr drones or are we facing the

114
00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:36,120
Speaker 1: big one in this country? What I'm trying to say

115
00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:40,080
Speaker 1: within the book is that every city, every significant city

116
00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:42,719
Speaker 1: in the world, has a big one in their future.

117
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:48,480
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily an earthquake, but all of the things

118
00:06:48,520 --> 00:06:52,440
Speaker 1: that make human life work, rivers and oceans that lead

119
00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:57,240
Speaker 1: to um the potential for natural disasters, and we all

120
00:06:57,320 --> 00:07:00,840
Speaker 1: will at some point, but we don't know when, and

121
00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:04,440
Speaker 1: it may be hundreds of years or more for many cities.

122
00:07:05,279 --> 00:07:08,960
Speaker 1: UM and that bothers us as human beings, we don't

123
00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 1: like it being random, But we don't know which one

124
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:14,320
Speaker 1: will be next. We just know it's going to happen somewhere.

125
00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a matter of if, it's just when.

126
00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:20,080
Speaker 1: And that's the same with an asteroid strike, I think

127
00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:22,760
Speaker 1: right now. But when on the asteroids strike? You know,

128
00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:25,360
Speaker 1: it's on average, what is it, every fifty million years,

129
00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:28,640
Speaker 1: So it's not something you should be keeping high your

130
00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:31,120
Speaker 1: your worries sphere. There's a lot of other things to

131
00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:34,520
Speaker 1: hurt you before then. But I just want to hope

132
00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:38,960
Speaker 1: you're not wrong. Well, on average, I'm pretty sure I'm right.

133
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:40,880
Speaker 1: I just don't know whether the next ones in fifty

134
00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:44,120
Speaker 1: million years or tomorrow. That's right, that's right. They've always

135
00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:48,600
Speaker 1: remember being in the Midwest during the Great flood there

136
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:52,320
Speaker 1: and they called it the five year flood. But the

137
00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:56,240
Speaker 1: problem is is once you've had that flood, you don't

138
00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,280
Speaker 1: know if the next five year flood is going to

139
00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:03,120
Speaker 1: start the next day or not. There's actually been quite

140
00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:05,080
Speaker 1: a bit of discussion that we shouldn't be using the

141
00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:09,559
Speaker 1: terminology because what's called the five your flood is really

142
00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:12,400
Speaker 1: the flood that has a one in five chance and

143
00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:16,840
Speaker 1: happening in any one year, and that's a random distribution.

144
00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:19,480
Speaker 1: Whether you have it this year or not does not

145
00:08:19,600 --> 00:08:24,320
Speaker 1: affect your chances of having it next year. Earthquakes aren't

146
00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:27,200
Speaker 1: that far off that process. I mean, we don't think

147
00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:29,760
Speaker 1: they're going to show up one year right after the other.

148
00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:33,360
Speaker 1: Um But for instance, there's one part of the San

149
00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,120
Speaker 1: Andreas where we've dug in and been able to map

150
00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:41,760
Speaker 1: out the soils disrupted in previous earthquakes and date them,

151
00:08:42,480 --> 00:08:45,800
Speaker 1: and one place where the average time between earthquakes is

152
00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:49,080
Speaker 1: about a hundred years. We have three of them that

153
00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:52,240
Speaker 1: were less than fifty years apart, one only thirty years apart,

154
00:08:52,679 --> 00:08:55,600
Speaker 1: and another one there was a three d and fifty

155
00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:59,280
Speaker 1: year interval. So the earthquakes are very erratic as well.

156
00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:05,000
Speaker 1: What makes these tectonic plates move doctor heat. Just like

157
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,599
Speaker 1: in the the basis of storms in the end is

158
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:14,120
Speaker 1: heat in the atmosphere, the basis of the earthquake motions

159
00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:17,920
Speaker 1: is heat within the earth. The core of the Earth

160
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:21,839
Speaker 1: has a lot of radioactive material. It generates heat. Uh,

161
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:24,960
Speaker 1: things that are hot want to get cooler, things that

162
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,560
Speaker 1: are cooler want to get hotter. The we you end

163
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:32,520
Speaker 1: up getting convection cells that move the hot rock from

164
00:09:32,559 --> 00:09:36,360
Speaker 1: down below up to the surface where it cools down. Um,

165
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:39,000
Speaker 1: just like you know, pouring cream into your coffee and

166
00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:42,280
Speaker 1: the to the cop and the cold liquid. Mixed rocks

167
00:09:42,520 --> 00:09:45,560
Speaker 1: of course move much more slowly, so a few hundred

168
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:49,800
Speaker 1: million years for these convection cells to turn over. But

169
00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,920
Speaker 1: it's the same fundamental physics. I'm concerned about the caldera

170
00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:57,480
Speaker 1: at Yellowstone. They say it pops every six hundred thousand

171
00:09:57,559 --> 00:10:00,719
Speaker 1: years and its way overdue. How danger rish is that?

172
00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:04,720
Speaker 1: I am not overly concerned about it because overdue doesn't

173
00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:08,040
Speaker 1: mean a lot for what I just said. Uh, we

174
00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:11,600
Speaker 1: may have a long average time, but how long it's

175
00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:14,080
Speaker 1: been since the last one doesn't matter very much in

176
00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:17,200
Speaker 1: setting the risk, and a once every six hundred thousand

177
00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:20,840
Speaker 1: year recurrence time doesn't doesn't lead to a lot of

178
00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:25,440
Speaker 1: risk right now. Isn't there any telltale signs when something

179
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:33,240
Speaker 1: like this could happen? It depends on your your hazard. Now. Volcanoes, yes, you, Uh.

180
00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:36,440
Speaker 1: The magma have to get from the magma chamber to

181
00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:40,800
Speaker 1: the Earth's surface, and you can often see it moving

182
00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:46,160
Speaker 1: through earthquakes and bulging and maybe some gases being released.

183
00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:52,120
Speaker 1: So volcanoes don't usually erupt completely without notice earthquakes. There's

184
00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:54,680
Speaker 1: nothing that has to happen before the earthquake can begin.

185
00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:57,600
Speaker 1: So those really do come completely out of the blue.

186
00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:00,640
Speaker 1: Now they do say if called there were ohs, it

187
00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:04,400
Speaker 1: could be a disaster of biblical proportions. Do you agree

188
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:08,720
Speaker 1: with that? If it goes in that full you know,

189
00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:11,240
Speaker 1: if we get an absolute repeat of what we saw

190
00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:16,400
Speaker 1: three quarters of a million years ago, yes, Uh, there

191
00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:18,840
Speaker 1: are a lot of ways it could erupt that wouldn't

192
00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:23,400
Speaker 1: be so catastrophic. Now, what fault is the worst in

193
00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:27,440
Speaker 1: this country? San Andreas are the new Madrid? Oh? I'd

194
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:30,760
Speaker 1: actually say the Cascadia fault in in the Pacific Northwest?

195
00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:33,640
Speaker 1: Really okay? Well, all right, So it depends on what

196
00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 1: you mean by worst. What is it the biggest earthquake,

197
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:41,200
Speaker 1: the most damage, or the most frequent damage? Well, I

198
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,440
Speaker 1: guess most damage has to do with exactly where it

199
00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:49,560
Speaker 1: would hit, right right, Well, alright, So the epicenter doesn't matter.

200
00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:52,640
Speaker 1: What matters is what surface moves in the earthquake, because

201
00:11:52,679 --> 00:11:55,760
Speaker 1: every point on the surface gives off energy. To be

202
00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:58,880
Speaker 1: a magnitude, that surface needs to be two d and

203
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:04,120
Speaker 1: fifty three s long. So when the southern San Andreas moves.

204
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:07,800
Speaker 1: That won't matter which where the epicenter shows up, because

205
00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:10,720
Speaker 1: it will be the whole southern San Andreas that wraps

206
00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:15,880
Speaker 1: around Los Angeles, runs through San Bernardino and Palm Springs,

207
00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:21,640
Speaker 1: and is one of the most damaging. Actually, that's probably

208
00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:24,760
Speaker 1: about the most damaging earthquake that we can imagine. Listen

209
00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:27,719
Speaker 1: to more Coast to Coast a m every weeknight at

210
00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:30,360
Speaker 1: one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to Coast

211
00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:31,800
Speaker 1: am dot com for more