Cascadia's Fault - Jerry Thompson [16]
Bakun’s coauthor in the prediction study, seismologist Allan Lindh, told us they were studying a stretch of the San Andreas near the farming town of Parkfield, California, that had ruptured five times since 1857—each event a magnitude 6 temblor that seemed nearly identical to the one that came before, as if the same punch were being thrown over and over again. Bakun and Lindh had convinced themselves the next in this series of “characteristic earthquakes” was due in about three years. According to their calculations, the fault would build up enough stress to break again as early as January 1988.
In August 1985, only a few months before our visit, Bakun and Lindh published the first official seismic prediction ever issued by the USGS: “The next characteristic Parkfield earthquake should occur before 1993.” Even with a five-year fudge factor, they had stuck their necks out by putting the prediction in writing in Science, one of the most prestigious and high-profile research publications in the world.
Like Bakun, Lindh seemed to be a cautious man. Still, there was enthusiasm in his voice as he talked about trying to trim the fudge factor and “narrow down the time from a few years to months, to a few days.” He told us, “I think we’ve got a fighting chance,” asserting that the way to refine the prediction was to concentrate as many instruments as possible along one small segment of the fault—the same fifteen-mile (25 km) rupture zone that had moved in each of the previous Parkfield punches—and monitor every little creep and twitch in the earth, day and night, until the next rupture. With luck, they might spot some kind of precursor that would allow them to issue a warning to the public.
When we wrapped the USGS shoot late that afternoon, my team and I drove four hours south on Highway 101 from Menlo Park, through the rush hour of San José, to a wine-country town called Paso Robles, where we spent the night. Early next morning we headed east into ranch country across dry brown hills on bumpy two-lane blacktop in search of a wide spot in the road called Parkfield. Our map showed it smack in the middle of nowhere about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Roughly thirty miles (50 km) east from Paso Robles we passed a road sign that told us we had found what we were looking for. Parkfield had a population of thirty-four, not counting cattle, and stood 1,520 feet (463 m) above sea level. We pulled up in front of what looked like an old ranch house made of square-cut timbers the color of creosote with a wide veranda, a corrugated metal roof, and a big stone chimney. Out front, in a tidy patch of unnaturally green grass, stood a tall wooden cowboy carved from a log and bolted to a stump with a small wooden dog at his knee.
In a gravel parking lot stood the rusty iron hulk of what used to be a water tower. In a curvy flourish of creamy white letters, a hand-painted sign read “The Parkfield Cafe.” Under that, in slightly smaller print, was the proclamation “Earthquake Capital of the World. Be Here When It Happens.”
Farther down the road we found the man we were looking for. USGS technician Rich Lichtie was waiting for us beneath a one-lane bridge that spanned a gully where Little Cholame Creek trickled west toward the sea. Lichtie fit the landscape in his baseball cap, blue chambray work shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. His windburned complexion and red walrus moustache allowed him to blend in with the surroundings even better. No