The October 17, 1989, Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake—Selected Photographs
By John K. Nakata, Charles E. Meyer, Howard G. Wilshire, John C. Tinsley, William S. Updegrove, D.M. Peterson, Stephen D. Ellen, Ralph A. Haugerud, Robert J. McLaughlin, G. Reid Fisher, and Michael F. Diggles
Digital Data Series DDS-29
Version 1.1
1999
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
BRUCE BABBITT, Secretary
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Charles G. Groat, Director
Introduction
On October 17, 1989, at 5:04:15 p.m. (P.d.t.), a magnitude 6.9 (moment magnitude; surface-wave magnitude, 7.1) earthquake severely shook the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions. The epicenter was located at 37.04° N. latitude, 121.88° W. longitude near Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, approximately 14 km (9 mi) northeast of Santa Cruz and 96 km (60 mi) south-southeast of San Francisco. The earthquake occurred when the crustal rocks comprising the Pacific and North American Plates abruptly slipped as much as 2 meters (7 ft) along their common boundary-the San Andreas fault system. The rupture initiated at a depth of 18 km (11 mi) and extended 35 km (22 mi) along the fault, but it did not break the surface of the Earth .
About the Loma Prieta earthquake CD—ROM
This CD—ROM contains 103 digitized color 35-mm images from Open-File Report 90-547 (Nakata and others, 1990). Our photographic coverage reflects the time and resources available immediately after the event and is not intended to portray the full extent of earthquake damage. This CD—ROM provides images for use by the interested public, multimedia producers, desktop publishers, and the high-end printing industry. The digital images are stored in the "photocd" folder and can be read across Macintosh, Windows, DOS, OS/2, SGI, and UNIX platforms which have applications that can read Kodak's Photo-CD (YCC) file format. Up-to-date information about Photo CD is on the World Wide Web at http://www.kodak.com/go/photocd. Also included on this CD—ROM are Windows and Macintosh viewers and engines for keyword or geographic searches (Adobe Acrobat Reader with Search). At the time of this publication, Kodak's policy on the distribution of color-management files is still unresolved, and so none is included on this CD-ROM. However, using the Universal Ektachrome or Universal Kodachrome transforms found in your software will provide excellent color.
Feel free to use any of these images but please cite the photographer and the U.S. Geological Survey.
View photographs on the screen in GIF and JPEG format
Index map of photographic sites (48 KB)
The preview thumbnail and screen-resolution images listed above are in GIF and JPEG formats, respectively, but undergo resolution loss due to downsizing, compression and (or) color-palate reduction relative to the original Photo CD images provided below.
CLICK HERE to browse the thumbnails (GIF's at about 192 x 128 pixels; /thumbs folder).
CLICK HERE to browse the screen-resolution images (JPEG's at about 768 x 512 pixels; /screens folder).
Acrobat PDF version of photographs
Because there are no freeware applications that will view or print PCD files, we have provided an Adobe Acrobat Photo CD (PCD) version of this report. Using Adobe Acrobat Reader (versions 3.01 and 4.0 provided on this CD—ROM in the Acrobat folder), you can print high-resolution copies of each photograph with its caption. To download newer versions of Acrobat Reader, if available, you can click on the button below.
CLICK HERE to view a PDF version of the photographs (dd-29.pdf; 40 MB). The images in this file are 600 dpi, sufficient resolution for making high-quality copies on most desktop printers.
CLICK HERE to view a slideshow (slideshow.pdf; 36 MB). The images in this file are 1024 x 768 pixels. To get the slideshow to advance automatically in your copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, set File, Preferences, Full Screen, to Advance Every 2 Seconds.
Photo CD (PCD) version of photographs
For users who have commercial software that can read and print PCD files, the photographs are provided on this CD—ROM in that format in the "photocd" folder. In the hierarchy of file formats, Photo CD (YCC) resides above BMP, EPS, GIF, JPEG, MOV, PCX, PICT, PSD, TIF, TIFF, etc., enabling end users to go from YCC to other formats, but not in the other direction without losing image quality. Each 24-bit color image is stored as five resolutions:
1. Thumbnail—[192 x 128 pixels] Contact-sheet-size images for quick previewing of the entire collection.
2. FPO "For Placement Only"—[384 x 256 pixels] A proxy for high-resolution images to determine placement in page-layout programs.
3. Screen Resolution—[786 x 512 pixels] Ideal for computer viewing and multimedia projects.
4. HDTV High-Definition Television—[1536 x 1024 pixels] Sufficient resolution for high definition TV, newspapers, and high-quality half-page layouts.
5. High Resolution—[3072 x 2048 pixels] Provides the printing industry with resolution sufficient for high-quality full-page layouts at 300 dpi/150 lpi and 24-bit color.
CLICK HERE to browse the PCD image collection (PCD's at 3072 x 2048 pixels; /photocd folder).
Other sources of information about the Loma Prieta earthquake
CLICK HERE for references and links for further reading.
Fact Sheet, "Progress Toward a Safer Future Since the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake"
CLICK HERE to view the PDF version of a Fact Sheet about the 10 years since the earthquake (fs1510-99.pdf; 3.8 MB)
This Fact Sheet is also available online at URL http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/fact-sheet/fs151-99/
View the Readme file
CLICK HERE to view the Readme file (1_README.TXT) for this CD—ROM in ASCII format.
View the caption file
CLICK HERE to view the captions file (captions.txt) for this CD—ROM in ASCII format.
View the version history
CLICK HERE to view the version-history file (version_history.txt) for this report in ASCII format.
Acknowledgments
We thank our colleagues: Richard Pike, for his thorough scrutiny of the entire manuscript; Robert Mark, for reviewing the computer section; Edward Helley, who originally reviewed Open-File Report 90-547; Evelyn (Newman) Billo, David Traudt, Sue Mayfield, Sara Boore, George Havach, Peter Stauffer, and Bob Page for facilitating authoring of the CD-ROM; Todd Fitzgibbon, for a short course in HTML; and Jack Hillhouse, for supporting the project. We especially thank Alpha CD Imaging of Menlo Park, Calif. for their technical assistance.
Disclaimer: Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
To contact the senior author, email John Nakata (jnakata@sightandsound.com), Sight & Sound Productions
Email technical-support comments to
Mike Diggles (mdiggles@mojave.wr.usgs.gov).
Availability of this publication
This report is for sale by:
U.S. Geological Survey
Information Services, National Mapping Division
Box 25046
Denver Federal Center
Denver, CO 80225-0046
Telephone: (888) ASK-USGS
ISBN 0-607-86640-3
This report is also available online at URL http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/dds/dds-29
Date created: 12/1995
Last modified: 09/27/1999
