Southlanders See a Link Between A-Tests, Quakes

At 8 a.m. on a recent summer Tuesday, the federal government exploded a nuclear bomb deep below ground in the desolate desert of Nevada. Five days later, California endured its most powerful earthquake in 40 years, a shaker that killed a child and gave millions a rude reminder of what life can be like in a tectonically turbulent corner of the world.

Were the two events related? Are subterranean blasts to blame for the temblors that trundle through the West from time to time?

Stressed out and wary of future quakes, many Southland residents seem convinced a connection exists. In the wake of this week’s tremors, they have telephoned scientists, talk show hosts and reporters--seeking answers, expressing theories and demanding an end to the underground tests.

“I’m not a panicky or superstitious or paranoid person,” declared Susan Schiffer of Del Mar, “but there has to be a link here, and I’m worried about it.”

Seismologists are sympathetic but insist such fretting is needless. It is true that when bombs are detonated beneath the Nevada Test Site, minor earthquakes and aftershocks--sometimes reaching a magnitude 3 or 4--often ripple through the immediate surrounding region.

But such energy can travel only so far, they note, and aftershocks dwindle in relatively short order. Consequently, experts say, there is no way that Nevada’s magnitude 3.9 weapons test on June 23 triggered Sunday’s twin quakes in the high desert of California 200 miles away.

“If they had a case, it would be very interesting,” said Walter Hays, deputy chief of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Office of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Engineering in Reston, Va. “But there is no case--thank goodness.”

Hays, a veteran seismologist, should know. In the mid-1970s, he served on a team of about 100 scientists who studied that very question for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, predecessor to today’s Department of Energy.

At the time, Hays said, the government was planning to expand underground testing to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska--a state with abundant seismic activity--but decided to investigate the possible earthquake consequences of the explosions first.

“It was given a very thorough evaluation by the best people around at the time,” Hays said in an interview Wednesday. After about two years of study, a panel of scientists agreed on a conclusion:

“There will be seismic activity after an explosion--possibly even small earthquakes on certain faults--but it will be minor and confined to a relatively short distance from the explosion’s source,” Hays said.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and since then we’ve had many explosions, and they’ve proved the conclusions were right.”

Other experts agreed. Rick Wilson, an engineering geologist with the state’s Division of Mines and Geology, said: “Earthquakes have been occurring on (California’s many faults) for thousands, in many cases millions of years”--long before the government began conducting its megaton weapons tests.

Lucile Jones, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, had this reply when asked about a correlation: “It’s just silly.” Even in the 1950s and ‘60s, when the test blasts were much stronger than they are today, “you never saw them trigger anything approaching a 7.4,” Jones said.

Still, many quake-weary residents remain skeptical, and some said fear has prompted them to redouble their effort to be prepared for additional quakes.

“I just don’t buy it,” Van Nuys social worker John Detwiler said of the scientists’ conclusions. Since Sunday’s temblor, Detwiler has removed a heavy beveled mirror from the wall above his bathtub and increased his stock of water, food, flashlights and other emergency provisions.

“We know vibrations travel through the earth, and the distance in this case is not that far,” Detwiler said. “I absolutely believe there’s a connection.”

Schiffer, an art teacher, was equally resolute, and she called Caltech Wednesday to express her views. She believes the tests--which occur about six times a year beneath a barren slab of land called Yucca Flat--should be stopped.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of friends--extremely educated people--about this, and we all agree,” Schiffer said. “We’re not a fringe group. We’re people with common sense who don’t believe this is a coincidence.”