Introduction

Instructions: Part one
Decide for yourself if it's actually worth bothering about earthquake preparation.

Probability

of a large earthquake 

striking the Pacific Northwest 

in the next 50 years

is one in three. 

Probability

of rolling six sixes 

In one hour

Is similar

“...Under pressure from Juan de Fuca, the stuck edge of North America is bulging upward and compressing eastward, at the rate of, respectively, three to four millimetres and thirty to forty millimetres a year. It can do so for quite some time, because, as continent stuff goes, it is young, made of rock that is still relatively elastic. (Rocks, like us, get stiffer as they age.) But it cannot do so indefinitely. There is a backstop—the craton, that ancient unbudgeable mass at the center of the continent—and, sooner or later, North America will rebound like a spring...”.

The New Yorker, July 20, 2015.

Is anyone really prepared for this?

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A reproduction of “Cascadia Zone Rupture” (an illustration by C. Niemann) painted on plywood. Atop that is a layer of eggshell pieces. Handwritten on the eggshells is text taken from “The Really Big One” by Kathryn Schulz, article in the New Yorker Magazine (April 20, 2015 issue).

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Tempera Paint, Acrylic Paint, Glue, Ink, Plywood, Eggshells*

4.5’ x 3.28’ x .75"

2019

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* Thanks to the Anderson, Arnhalt, Corbett-Donovan, Freeman, Graham, Jacobsen, Kuwabara, Lawrence, McMalmstrom, Planagan, Reevesberry, and Smithingham families for all the eggshells