When Worlds Quake

How earthquakes can reveal the subsurface secrets of our planet and other worlds

When Worlds Quake is a fascinating account of how scientists around the globe seek to use quakes to answer tantalizing questions about the structure and inner dynamics of our planet and to discover the deepest secrets of our nearest neighbors in the solar system.

Briefly traversing the history of seismology, Hrvoje Tkalčić describes the women and men who sought to understand major seismic events—from the catastrophic 1556 Shaanxi earthquake and the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 to more recent events such as the 2020 earthquakes in Tkalčić’s native Croatia—and thus shaped the field. Modern global seismologists now not only study the behavior of earthquakes but also use seismic waves as tools to image Earth’s deep interior. To do this work, they need seismographs positioned around the globe, including in remote, challenging regions. Tkalčić takes the reader along on his own daring expeditions to install seismographs and collect seismic wave data from the wilds of the Australian Outback to the rough depths of the Southern Ocean, and even farther afield—to the Moon and Mars, where quakes can be used to image the interiors of these worlds.

A riveting and often personal narrative about the cutting-edge science of global and planetary seismology, When Worlds Quake reveals how quakes can help scientists to understand the mysterious inner architecture and ongoing evolution of our planet, as well as worlds beyond our own.