There's no coincidence tsunami is a Japanese word.

Only a year ago Aon Bentham, an insurance company,  held a meeting discussing which places would be hit next with major natural disasters. They identified Indonesia, Chile and Japan as locations where an 8.0Mw quakes may hit next. Does this mean that Seismologists could have done more to predict the Japanese earthquake?

The March 11th 2011 earthquake which hit Honshu, Japan and measured at 8.9 Mw was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days, beginning on March 9th with an earthquake of magnitude 7.2, occuring about 40 km from where Friday's earthquake hit. A further 3 earthquakes greater than magnitude 6 occured that same day. Knowing this I can't help but ask why was more prediction not implemented?

Information from the Japanese Meteorological Society about large earthquakes from the day before

Professor Peter Sammonds a seismologist at the Benfield Hazards Centre in London stated that "the problem with foreshocks is you never know if it is a foreshock or not until the larger quake comes". However, there are calculations and methods to predict earthquakes and after the 2004 Sumatran earthquake there was a paper published about the stress transfer along the fault line causing further ruptures, which correctly predicted a second major earthquake four months later. Sammonds admits that "the calculation is within our grasp, we just don't have the time to implement it within two days". Since the Sumatran earthquake occured in the same splay-fault system could there have been predictions and better defences built since 2004? In truth, despite being linked they are too far away for any of the stress transfer from the 2004 earthquake to have affected the section of fault line alongside Japan. 

Tsunami Wave heights as predicted by NOAA

As it is the Japanese people live with an ever-present expectation of natural disaster; floods, hurricanes, fires, and most of all earthquakes and the massive waves they can generate. Looking at the USGS damage predictions we see the damage itself is quite small, however they didn't predict the effect of the tsunami, and despite the buildings resisting the earthquake itself the tsunami  swept away all in it's path. Even if the major quake wasn't predicted from the foreshocks, you'd think in light of the knowledge that these thrust faults move under sea plates and often cause tsunamis, the Japanese would have been more inclined to evacuate the coastal areas. The Japanese have in fact built concrete walls along the coast to act as tsunami defence barriers and on Friday issued a warning 10 minutes before the wave struck to allow people time to evacuate to higher ground. There is evidence that these tsunami barriers and warning systems did work to some extent but it is still too early to say how effectve the warning system was.

Above The Tsunami covering the coast and breaking it's defences. Below: The Damage caused

Despite the damage and ongoing problems (like the melting nuclear reactors) Japan can't relax. This isn't the 'Big One' they've been waiting from, far from it. The most devastating earthquake would occur along the Nankai fault plane and would effect Tokyo massively. Since this is a completely seperate system the probablity of a quake occuring there has not changed and Japan may be in for much more turmoil in the future.

' No, we cannot give the job to this woman. She is too young and tender, the strain of the field work would be too much for her.' - Anonymous, 1990

On the final day of the week in which we heralded International Women's Day I felt this would be the perfect time to praise the women in science who are so often forgotten and to relive their, often amazing, stories. While many female geologists now are well known, and many geological societies worldwide are presided over by women (last year the president of the GSL was Lynne Frostick, a noted sedimentologist), there are many more who are now unable to tell their own stories.

In Victorian Britain the very idea of women doing serious science (except botany) was widely ridiculed, and women often worked as 'assistants' and family members, forgoing all acknowledgement of their work in order to further science for the greater good. Although Etheldred Bennett is heralded as the first woman in geology in the UK Mary Anning is probably England's best known woman in geology. The fossil hunter who followed her father up and down the clffs of Lyme Regis and discovered the Ichthyosaur struggled for years to have her discoveries  recognised as her own. 

Mary Anning in the field with her dog

Since she didn't keep a diary and was unable to publish any scientific papers there is very little known about the life of Mary Anning, unlike the male geologists of her time who couldn't wait to pen their biographies. When in 1824, she visited the Geological Society of London a noble woman Lady Harriet Sivester expressed complete disbelief at the gumption of this young, underprivileged and uneducated girl; ". . . the extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she has made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they belong. It is certainly a wonderful instance of divine favour - that this poor, ignorant girl should be so blessed, for by reading and application she has arrived to that degree of knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men on the subject, ". At least Lady Silvester appreciated that Miss Anning had worked hard for her knowledge.

In the US another hard working, and extremely determined young girl carved her place as the First Lady of Geology. Florence Bascom (July 14, 1862 – June 18, 1945) had to enrol in her father's college to gain a degree and was greatly influenced by her father’s friend, a geology professor at Ohio State University, Bascom became increasingly interested in geology and was eventually awarded the opportunity to study for a PhD. However, as the photo below shows field gear may have changed since the 1800's but the determination of women to even the gender gap in science still remains.  Bascom was only allowed to gain her PhD on the condition she sit behind a screen during classes so as not to disrupt male students (yes...really..!) 

Florence Bascom in the field with a compass- a different Geological fashion to now!

She was the first woman to be hired by the USGS and was eventually awarded the honor of four stars in the first edition of American Men of Science, an accolade which showed the men in her field at least accepted her as one of their own. An expert in mineralogy and petrography (and the youngest daughter of a suffragette) her legacy was to build a women's own college and train several women to become future geologists. She influenced most of the women geologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of whom debated and argued with discoveries she had personally taught them (debates she in fact welcomed and results she championed). The college originally included geology as part of the natural sciences and so Bascom initially worked out of a storage area in the newly established sciences building, but after two years she had gathered a collection of minerals, rocks, and fossils worthy of their own building and eventually founded the school’s department of geology. Her work and contribution to geology is still being awarded and they named a crater on Venus after her.

Both of these women geologists were incredibly successful when being a woman was virtually worse than being a pet, but my all time favourite story of women in science is not that of a geologist but a woman ahead of her time even in an unrelated field. It shows the brilliant sense of humour needed to survive in a world where your determination and drive will only get you as far as that glass ceiling. Anna Barbauld was the brilliant young assistant to Joseph Priestley FRS, the great 18th-century chemist (who discovered oxygen and it's necessity to life). She pioneered animal rights in laboratories after noting the distress of mice as they were steadily deprived of air in glass vacuum jars. Accordingly, she wrote a poem in the voice of one of Priestley's laboratory mice and stuck it in the bars of the mouse's cage for Priestley to find the next morning. She entitled it: "The Mouse's Petition to Dr Priestley, Found in the Trap where he had been Confined all Night".

For here forlorn and sad I sit,

Within the wiry Grate, 

And tremble at the approaching Morn 

Which brings impending fate…

The cheerful light, the Vital Air, 

Are blessings widely given; 

Let Nature's commoners enjoy 

The common gifts of Heaven.

The well-taught philosophic mind 

To all Compassion gives; 

Casts round the world an Equal eye, 

And feels for all that lives.

Barbauld's penchant for study worried her mother who expected her to "end up a spinster because of her intellectualism..." and with it still a common legend that boys don't like smart women let's hope that's not the fate even for today's women in science.