This article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/science/19quake.html?_r=1&ref=science
The Haiti earthquake at the beginning of this year decimated thousands of buildings, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and left about a million others homeless. Wouldn’t it be great if we could reduce the destruction incurred from such high-magnitude earthquakes? Well, in this article, Henry Fountain explains new seismology research that could help diminish the damages done by future earthquakes.
While the new research and its great potential are the main subjects of the article, Fountain does not arrive to them until about halfway through. It may have strengthened his story to have included the major points of the research in the first paragraph or two, so the reader knows what’s coming and what’s important. Recently, scientists had a revelation with regards to the Haiti earthquake: they found that it was intensified due to the geometry of local surface features—known as “topographic amplification.” However, in the article, this doesn’t come up until the third paragraph. He could have spent less time in the second paragraph describing the secondary intensifying effects of sedimentary rock and more time introducing the reader to these new findings. The good stuff doesn’t come until the end when he begins to quote the seismologists themselves: Dr. Hough says that with this ongoing research and computer simulations, we can eventually “say, ‘You should build over here, and not there.’” She also says, “you can build safely, even in zones [of severe shaking]. You just have to know what you’re up against…We can design for it.” This is the meat of the story, and Fountain could have included it much sooner and trimmed the fat to produce a more solid piece.
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