The Big One: The Earthquake that Rocked Early America and Helped Create a Science

The author investigates a geological catastrophe story--the series of massive earthquakes, centered in what is now Missouri and Arkansas, at the start of the 1800s that wreaked almost unimaginable destruction on the American frontier--and speculates about the likelihood of a repeat performance.

CHARLES OFFICER has been a professor in the Earth Sciences Department at Dartmouth and has taught at Thayer School of Engineering. The Big One was inspired by the authors' earlier book Tales of the Earth. 

Besides writing books, Page has been a ranch hand, a hard-rock miner, the founding editor (and later publisher) of Doubleday’s Natural History Press, editorial director of Natural History magazine and the science editor of Smithsonian magazine. In total Page has written or coauthored 43 books on the natural sciences, zoological topics, Native American affairs and mystery fiction as well as hundreds of magazine articles and columns.

Page’s books reflect his various interests, DOGS: A NATURAL HISTORY, CAVERN, IN THE HANDS OF THE GREAT SPIRIT: THE 20,000 YEAR HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDIANS and HOPI, a contemporary look at the Hopi Indians, in collaboration with his wife Susanne, a photographer.

Page is also the coauthor of THE INVISIBLE SEX: UNCOVERING THE TRUE ROLES OF WOMEN IN PREHISTORY (with James Adovasio and Olga Soffer) and THE FIRST AMERICANS: IN PURSUIT OF ARCHEOLOGY’S GREATEST MYSTERY (with James Adoviso). He is also the author of the popular Mo Bowdre mysteries, set in the Southwest, include THE STOLEN GODS, THE DEADLY CANYON, LETHAL PARTNER and A CERTAIN MALICE.

He lives with his wife in northern Colorado with their six dogs.