Earthquake Scientists Hope That Recent Rumblings Will Lead To More Funding

The San Francisco disaster proved the urgency of work toward mitigating damage as well as predicting when future quakes will strike WASHINGTON -- The physical aftershocks from last fall's deadly earthquake in San Francisco have ceased. But earthquake scientists are hoping that the political aftershocks from that devastating event, and the recent smaller trembler near Los Angeles, persist long enough to invigorate a field that has suffered from more than a decade of neglect since the launching

Jeffrey Mervis

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The San Francisco disaster proved the urgency of work toward mitigating damage as well as predicting when future quakes will strike

WASHINGTON -- The physical aftershocks from last fall's deadly earthquake in San Francisco have ceased. But earthquake scientists are hoping that the political aftershocks from that devastating event, and the recent smaller trembler near Los Angeles, persist long enough to invigorate a field that has suffered from more than a decade of neglect since the launching of a major federal program to predict when and where nature's fury will strike next.

"We responded to Loma Prieta," says Sen. Al Gore (D-Tenn.), referring to the October quake in California, "but we haven't taken the time to prepare for the next one. We don't focus on the long term in this country; it's a philosophical malady that we must correct."

Gore is cosponsor of a bill that passed the Senate one ...

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