Wasatch fault

The flat plane these students are standing next to is the Wasatch Fault. This fault is a large normal fault that runs through Idaho and Utah, including through heavily populated areas near Salt Lake City. The fault marks the western boundary of the Wasatch Mountain range; land to the west of this fault has dropped down along the normal fault, creating the basin filled by the city and Great Salt Lake.

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These are the kinds of things that happen when you hang out with too many geologists.

Image credit: VolcanoJw (with permission)

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L’Aquila Earthquake Verdict overturned on appeal

There has been a major development in the case of several Italian seismologists who were convicted of manslaughter charges associated with their statements prior to a deadly earthquake in the city of L’Aquila in 2009. Today, an appeals court overturned the conviction.

Here’s the detailed background. In late 2008/early 2009, the area surrounding L’Aquila, a city of nearly 70,000 people, began to feel a series of Earthquakes. L’Aquila is in the mountains of Central Italy, a very seismically active area, and has a history of damaging earthquakes going back millennia. 

As this series of quakes unfolded, the townspeople became concerned that the quakes were precursors to a larger earthquake – concerns that were inflamed when at least one “earthquake predictor” offered a “prediction” of a larger earthquake to come.

By late March 2009, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake combined with this long series of quakes and this prediction had the community in a panic – leading Italian authorities to call in a group of the state’s leading seismologists for advice.

The seismologists gave statements that seem technically accurate – there was no way to be certain whether this sequence of quakes was leading to a larger event, but the probability of a large earthquake at any given time is low and predictions like those being offered in that city were extremely unreliable.

Several figures in politics took these statements farther – with one noteable official stating that the series of quakes was relieving stress on the fault and reducing the chances of a larger quake, which is completely untrue. The panic in the city subsided as versions of these statements were disseminated, and then 6 days later a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck, killing over 300 people.

The team of seismologists who offered their assessment were charged and convicted with manslaughter based on their statements. The townspeople stated that their reassurances had led them to stay in their homes when there was a real danger. 

After the convictions, scientists around the world rose up in outcry over the convictions, with the feeling that the scientists were being blamed both for statements made by other people without scientific backing and for simply providing their best estimate of an uncertain situation. The townspeople, on the other hand, both wanted justice for what they feel was a wrong and for the way that the words like “improbable” were used in a way outside of the direct meaning of the science in order to calm people when in a scientific context the word “improbable” has a specific meaning.

Today, the conviction was overturned on appeal. Members of the public were described as calling the verdict a “disgrace”. Meanwhile the scientific community is generally expressing relief worldwide on the grounds that no scientist wants to see another jailed for giving his or her expert opinion about a rare but possible event and turning out wrong. That result would not only seem unfair, but it would also chill the relationship between scientists and the public, making it even harder to disseminate accurate information in uncertain but risky cases.

The L’Aquila case is an extremely complex one. The journey from scientifically accurate statements about low probabilities to the statements given to the public has been thrust in the open in this case, and it is messy. Words used in a scientific context lost that context when presented to the public and the meaning of the scientists’ words was altered or even completely changed by the time the people heard it, and in the end the result was that people died.

As a scientist, I express gratitude at this conviction being overturned for the reasons I described above, but as a scientific communicator, I have to note that something awful happened in this case involving the communication of science. As scientists we absolutely need to take a close look at this case and find ways to do better to avoid repeating what happened in L’Aquila, in every sense that statement can be taken.

-JBB 

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Aquila#mediaviewer/File:L%27Aquila_eathquake_prefettura.jpg

Read about the overturned conviction:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/10/laquila-earthquake-scientists-win-appeal-seismologists

The best article you’ll ever read about this case:
https://medium.com/matter/the-aftershocks-7966d0cdec66

Official version from AGU:

http://sites.agu.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LAquila_7.pdf