Read the paragraph from "1906 Marked the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution." The 1906 earthquake marked the dawn of modern scientific study of the San Andreas fault system in California.
Before 1906, earthquake research in the U. S. had advanced slowly compared to efforts in Japan and Europe.
The first seismographs in the U. S. were installed in 1887, at the Lick Observatory (Mount Hamilton, California)
and at the University of California at Berkeley. Around the turn of the century, a small number of geology
professors at U. S. universities and geologists working for the U. S. Geological Survey contributed some of the
earliest observations of earthquake-related features and compiled the earliest lists of historic earthquakes in
the U. S. Relatively little was understood at the time about earthquakes, how and where they occurred, or the
hazard they would present to our westward-bound, expanding nation. The theory of plate tectonics was still
more than a half-century away.
A central idea of this article is that studying the 1906 earthquake led to great advances in earthquake science. How
does this paragraph develop that idea?
1906 Marked the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution
It describes the experience that the scientists had before the 1906 earthquake.
It identifies the equipment that the scientists would use in the 1906 study.
o It engages readers by making the California earthquake scientists seem like underdogs.
It contrasts the study with the relatively primitive science that came before it.