Cascadia's fault : the earthquake and tsunami that could devastate North America / Jerry Thompson ; with an introduction by Simon Winchester.

Includes bibliographical references.

pt. 1. Tremors and ripples -- Mexico City : preview of coming events -- Lessons from the rubble : a front-page story -- The Alaska megathrust : Cascadia's northern cousin -- Against the wind of convention : Plafker, Benioff, and Press -- Cauldron and crust : the rehabilitation of continental drift -- Nuke on a fault : early clues in Humboldt Bay -- Proving the doubters wrong : the Chile connection -- Mount St. Helens : Cascadia's smoking gun? -- pt. 2. Setbacks and breakthroughs -- Mud cores and lasers : the search for evidence -- The whoops factor : Cascadia's true nature revealed -- Quake hunters : finding Cascadia's ghost forest -- Cedars, peat, and turbidites : a tipping point at Monmouth -- Cascadia's segmented past : apocalypse or decades of terror? -- Digital water : catching waves in a computer -- Defining the zone : hot rocks and high water -- Cracks, missing rings, and native voices : closing in on a killer quake -- The orphan tsunami : final proof of Cascadia's last rupture -- Episodic tremor and slip : tracking Cascadia with GPS -- Turbidite timeline : Cascadia's long and violent history -- When's this going to happen? : the problems with prediction -- p. 3. Shockwaves -- Facing reality : Cascadia equals Sumatra -- The next wave : thinking the unthinkable -- Watching it happen, wishing it wouldn't -- Cascadia's fault : day of reckoning -- Epilogue: Survival and resilience, a state of mind.