Stick-Slip - Softcover

Scholz, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1497349516 ISBN 13: 9781497349513

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

Deep beneath the Pacific Northwest lies the Cascadia subduction zone—an earthquake factory that is long overdue for a “big one.” Tensions have been building for over three centuries, and it’s not a matter of if but when and how big. Retired earthquake expert Carl Strega thinks he may know, and it’s much sooner than anyone would like to think. But he can’t rush his discovery to the scientific community or the media just yet because his data is based on a cutting edge, unproven branch of chaos theory. Avoiding the destruction of his reputation and mass hysteria is the order of the day.

Carl secretly assembles a team of local university researchers to put his theory to the test, but they only have so much time. Before they’re finished, word gets out that a magnitude-nine earthquake is going to rock the Pacific Northwest in less than a year. Panic ensues, as does a backlash against the scientists—all of which slows their progress toward confirming if it’s even true.

An ever-present clock ticks down in this high-stakes thriller, as one cutting edge scientist desperately races to save countless lives, while many attempt to destroy his own.

About this title

About the Author:

Christopher Scholz is an expert in earthquake physics and a professor of geophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. He is the author of the monograph The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting, the memoir Fieldwork: A Geologist’s Memoir of the Kalahari, and over 250 scientific papers. The great magnitude-nine earthquake in Tohoku-oki, Japan, and its subsequent tsunami greatly influenced Scholz’s new science fiction thriller Stick-Slip.

From Kirkus Reviews:

From the author of Fieldwork (2014) comes a science thriller about trying to predict the next devastating earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. Carl Strega is a retired geophysicist living in Birkett Valley, Oregon. After leaving a university post because of the politics that impeded his scientific work, he began researching on his own. While studying data collected by GPS stations throughout the Pacific Northwest regarding slow-slip events—which happen every 14 months, below “the part of the interface between the [tectonic] plates that is normally locked by friction”—he hypothesizes that the next SSE, due in 11 months, could trigger a major earthquake and a tsunami. Carl quickly assembles a team of professors and students to pore over the mounds of data that will allow them to create as accurate a prediction model as possible. They try to work secretly, to keep the public from unduly panicking; a leak nevertheless allows the Oregonian newspaper to break the story. A media frenzy soon follows. When plans to build a high-end golf resort become jeopardized, the local tourism association sics Herman Stackhouse, a character assassin, on Carl. Will rationality prevail—and lives be saved—in an environment engineered to trample science and help big business? Scholz, himself a professor of geophysics, confidently loads his novel with a bevy of details that will help lay readers navigate the fascinating realm of earthquake prediction. Occasionally, the science is dense, but when readers need clarification, Scholz offers bracing metaphors: “If you’re trying to push a heavy object...it often proceeds in jerks, accompanied by screeching....That jerky motion is stick-slip.” His direct, brisk narrative likewise adeptly portrays the various sides in each controversy. David, a science reporter, wants Carl’s work available to the public on ethical grounds, later saying about large companies (like oil and tobacco) and the far right: “Their greatest fear is of a world organized according to science-informed public policies.” Mentions of Fox News following Stackhouse’s slanderous blog are humorous though frightening. An entertaining and informative top-to-bottom peek at the clash between science and politics

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1497349516
• ISBN 13: 9781497349513
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 326