User:Marysarkis/1933 Long Beach earthquake

Article Evaluation
The lead section of the article was overall not that strong. The article gives good overall information about the time, location, date, etc. of the earthquake, but then once going into the main sections they are weaker. The first section is damage, normally background should be first. Then after it would be expected there was a more thorough description of the event happening, before even going into the sections about damage and aftermath. Though the section about damage was strong. The article, explained well the damage to Long Beach: the physical destruction of property, buildings, etc. Which was clear and easy to understand. The next section about the aftermath did a good job of explaining the people's response.

The lead section of the article was good, it was able to draw the reader into the article and provide a good back story on the day that the earthquake happened. Overall, this was a very strong article as it was able to give information about the date, location, magnitude, casualties, etc. about the earthquake itself. The article was broken up into four different sections, introduction, facts and figures, intensity, and aftermath. The introduction section was able to provide a well written summary of the events that happened during the earthquake. The facts and figures section was able to provide specific information about the earthquake, like the intensity, casualties and even the epicenter. The intensity and aftermath section were able to provide graphics that showed the intensity and the epicenter of the earthquake for a better visual understanding.

Damage
Many schools were destroyed, however there were no students present in the classrooms at the time of the earthquake.

First Hand Accounts (incooperated into damage section)

In a March 20th, 2008, Los Angeles Times Article, Molly Hennessy-Fiske reported: "the 1933 quake changed the landscape, leading to improved school construction standards and a heightened awareness of earthquake risks."

"It was a very big political event and a very big event in terms of the development of California seismology," said Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena.

Article body
Causes

* Will be added/incorporated into the causes section that currently exists.

Within the Los Angeles depositional basin, northwest-trending groups of faulted anticlines were initially viewed to be caused by oil and gas extraction underneath the city. The extraction of oil and gas produces very salty water causes stress to fault lines, causing earthquakes to occur. Often leftover water and natural gas production will strengthen the magnitude of the earthquake making them even more dangerous. The fault line the earthquake occurred on was the Newport-Inglewood fault zone. Which is now viewed as a fault zone from evidence of right-lateral displacement and a northwest-southeast orientation which is parallel to other major right-lateral faults in California. The fault zone extends for about 46 miles on land from Culver City to Newport beach, where it then connects to the Pacific Ocean. This fault could is expected to be able to produce an earthquake with up to a magnitude of about 7.4. Though this once which occurred in 1933 was only up to a magnitude of about 6.4.

A study done by the USGS suggests that drilling in a Huntington Beach area caused the 1933 earthquake. Other studies, done by the USGS, has also indicated that oil drilling may have been responsible for earthquakes in the surrounding areas in the 1920's. This study was done by two scientists that studied early state oil drilling records. They found that the epicenters for these earthquakes were located near where significant changes had occurred in oil production areas. Man-made earthquakes are still a problem to this day, especially in Oklahoma and Texas. Recent studies have shown that the injection of wastewater into the ground has increased seismic events.

Aftermath
President Franklin Roosevelt asked Americans to contribute to helping the victims, also sending federal aid. Legislators in the state of California acted quickly after the earthquake. As a result, the Field act was passed, which involves the legislation that mandated earthquake-resistant construction. With this act being passed, subsequent earthquakes have caused fewer deaths.

Utilizing a basic non-linear model, soft sediment response at the site was more powerful than initially predicted.