My friend Suzanne showed me an artist’s book called Fallen Books the other day. According to the artists, Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson:
Books are earthquake proof. Fallen Books is a book project that brings together images of toppled books housed in seismically active libraries. The photographs, often taken by librarians, are laid out as a chronological index of libraries in the aftermath of an earthquake and include earthquake names, locations, dates and the relative intensity of the earthquake as measured by the Modified Mercalli Scale.
Here’s one of the pictures…
I suppose since I experienced some rather large earthquakes first-hand when I lived in California, the book had a particular appeal to me. In the 1989 earthquake, everything on the shelves in the corner market around the block from my house fell onto the floor; it looked rather like that picture above. I was especially drawn to the back of the book, with a color coded display of the Modified Mercalli Scale. Here’s some examples:
II. Feeble: Felt only by a few persons at rest, especially on upper floors of buildings. Delicately suspended objects may swing.
V. Rather Strong: Felt by nearly everyone; many awakened. Some dishes and windows broken. Unstable objects overturned. Clocks may stop.
The USGS website lists the worst as
XII. Damage total. Lines of sight and level are distorted. Objects thrown into the air.
See more of Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson’s work here.