Diálogos con Historia, Capítulo 2, "Terremotos"

In this chapter, Alfredo Palacios discusses his research on earthquakes in Chile. Seismology is a young science that formally began in the mid-19th century, when the first seismographs were installed worldwide and tectonic activity began to be monitored with instruments that recorded ground vibrations as seismic waves passed through. Currently, the seismic behavior of a region or an active geological fault can be studied from two perspectives: on the one hand, by examining the narrow view offered by the brief history of instrumental records over the last hundred years, and on the other hand, through qualitative assessment based on the analysis of historical documents that describe the damage caused by earthquakes in the past.