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{
    "localId": "30806045",
    "label": "Memorandum from Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to President Gerald R. Ford Regarding Indications of a Possible Major Earthquake in California",
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    "id": "30806045",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/30806045",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum from Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to President Gerald R. Ford Regarding Indications of a Possible Major Earthquake in California",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/30806045",
    "collections": [
        "Glenn R. Schleede Files",
        "Glenn Schleede's Subject Files"
    ],
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    "naId": 30806045,
    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 5,
            "logicalDate": "1976-02-05",
            "month": 2,
            "year": 1976
        }
    ],
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{
    "seq": 4,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/45/8060/30806045/content/presidential-libraries/ford/gallery/011300132-001_Page_4.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "DE?ARTMEST OF EARTH AND PLANETARI : SCIENCES\nMASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY\nCAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139\n21 January 1976\nThe Honorable Nelson A. Rockefeller\nVice President\nFORD\nRoom 275\nOld Executive Office Building\nWashington, D. C. 20500\nDear- Mr. Vice President:\nEdward Teller, my fellow member on the Advisory\nGroup in Science and Technology, tells me that he mentioned\nto you our deep concern over a recent discovery of the U. S.\nGeological Survey that much of the Mojave Desert of south-\nern California and the mountains to the southeast of it\nhave risen as much as one foot in the past fifteen years.\nThe uplift is centered along the northern edge OF the San\nAndreas fault, the fault that gave rise to the 1906 earth-\nquake in San Francisco. The discovery, which will soon be\nreleased publicly, is most disturbing because such uplifts\nin the past have preceded earthquakes of great destructive\npower. This particular section of the San Andreas fault\nlies about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. In the view of\nmost knowledgeable scientists, it is a dangerous section\nhaving last broken in a great earthquake in 1857.\nThe effect on Los Angeles of an earthquake in the region\nof the uplift would be quite disastrous. A structural engi-\nneer at U.C.L.A., Professor Martin Duke, has estimated that\nas many as 40,000 buildings would suffer collapse or serious\ndamage.\nThere is no question that the uplift must be taken very\nseriously even though geophysicists have, as yet, no clear\nunderstanding of its origin or significance. in uplift\npreceded the earthquake that struck San Fernando, California\nin 1971, and uplifts have preceded earthquakes in Japan and\nChina. An uplift in Southern California around 1900, however,\nwas not followed by an earthouake.\nThe region of the uplift should 20.7 be subjected to a\nMOSE intense scrutiny and the fubure developments monitored\nclosely. I E even an approximate warning of the acproach OF\n(page 1 of 2)"
}