Blue Dot: 1906: The Great Northern California Earthquake Pt. 2

By Dave Schlom,

Published June 21, 2024 at 10:19 AM PDT

USGS personnel servicing a ShakeAlert sensor station.

Blue Dot concludes its look back and forward at the earthquake that shook Northern California on April 18, 1906.

Host Dave Schlom visits once again with Susan Hough, a geophysicist from the United States Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center in Pasadena to discuss how science responded in the aftermath of the quake.

Then, Dave is joined by social scientist Sara McBride from the USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center in Golden, Colorado, to discuss how humans respond to the stresses of the earth moving beneath our feet in a major quake.

Finally, we learn about the relatively new early warning system ShakeAlert, which has been deployed on the West Coast, with ShakeAlert Team Operations Lead Robert deGroot.

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Dave Schlom

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.

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Matt Fidler

Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.

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