The Great Quake

How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet

By: Henry Fountain

Narrated by: Robert Fass

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A riveting narrative about the biggest earthquake in North American recorded history—the 1964 Alaska earthquake that demolished the city of Valdez and swept away the island village of Chenega—and the geologist who hunted for clues to explain how and why it took place.

At 5:36 p.m. on March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2. earthquake—the second most powerful in world history—struck the young state of Alaska. The violent shaking, followed by massive tsunamis, devastated the southern half of the state and killed more than 130 people. A day later, George Plafker, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, arrived to investigate. His fascinating scientific detective work in the months that followed helped confirm the then-controversial theory of plate tectonics.

In a compelling tale about the almost unimaginable brute force of nature, New York Times science journalist Henry Fountain combines history and science to bring the quake and its aftermath to life in vivid detail. With deep, on-the-ground reporting from Alaska, often in the company of George Plafker, Fountain shows how the earthquake left its mark on the land and its people—and on science.

Reads like a page-turner crime story

Fascinating and well written. I arrived in Alaska less than a decade after the earthquake and its impact was still very visible in many places. Half of Fourth Avenue was still sunken and not yet rebuilt. I visited Chenega village and stood in the schoolhouse.

I loved the way the author follows several people in different places throughout the book and how he develops the necessary background in stages. We get a great understanding of plate tectonics written for everyone.

For me, having lived and visited most of the places he describes, it was thrilling and vivid but I think it would be so even for someone who had never been there.

A fabulous read and performance. Five stars all around.

Pacific NW readers take notice

This book is a good blend of personal stories and science. It is estimated that another quake of this size in Alaska is 600 to 800 years away. On the Oregon and Washington coasts a big quakes has happened every 3 to 4 hundred years. The last one was 350 years ago.

Very Compelling and Humbling Story

A cautionary tale that's filled with resilience and the pursuit of facts, facts that someday may save lives. I'd recommend our current CIC take a listen and a lesson about the power of nature. and how things once not understood or believed, ultimately have been proven by decades of science. The truth is not false simply because there are doubters .

Extremely interesting!

I didn’t know much about this event, but I also learned a lot about earthquakes and geology. Read well too.

Tectonic plate primer + a good story

A good integration of geology theory development with a good retelling of the great earthquake in 1964.
I enjoy Simon Winchester's books. This feels like one of his books.