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James Jackson on understanding earthquakes and building resilience

There’s no early-warning system for earthquakes, but Jim Al-Khalili hears how studying processes that shape our planet’s surface can help vulnerable cities become more resilient.

Since 1900, our best estimates suggest that earthquakes have caused around 2.3 million deaths worldwide; we saw the devastating effects of one just recently, in Turkey and Syria. And as scientists have been at pains to point out over the years, there is no reliable short-term warning system.

But thanks to the work of people like James Jackson, an Emeritus Professor of Active Tectonics at the University of Cambridge, we are finding new ways of understanding and withstanding seismic activity.

James tells Jim Al-Khalili about his career travelling the world in search of quake sites and fault lines – trialling new technology and techniques in a quest to understand the processes that shake and shape our planet’s surface; and working out how this information can help vulnerable cities become more resilient to quakes in future...

Produced by Lucy Taylor.

Available now

29 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Tue 21 Mar 2023 09:00
  • Tue 21 Mar 2023 21:30

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