Earth can be full of extremes.
But today, there's only one extreme.
Non-stop earthquakes
that last an entire year.
Earth's tectonic plates
are constantly moving.
And as they move past each other,
pressure builds up.
Eventually, that force
overcomes the friction,
and this causes an earthquake.
Earthquakes like this
could occur at any time.
And if they happened all the time,
it would be the ultimate test
of the resilience of many buildings.
While buildings may be good at handling
vertical forces from weight and gravity,
they are not so well-equipped
for the side-to-side forces of earthquakes.
Many innovative designs and materials
such as flexible foundations,
shock absorption and memory alloys
could be used
to make buildings more earthquake-proof.
But under such extreme circumstances,
would the only safe place
for you be in a middle of a field?
On average,
there are 20,000 earthquakes each year.
If one occurred near you,
how would it feel?
Well, that depends on how close you'd be
to the epicenter.
Close by,
you would experience a sudden large jolt,
followed by strong shaking.
This would last 10 to 30 seconds.
Even in the most massive quakes,
the shaking doesn't
last longer than a few minutes.
But in this scenario,
the vibration wouldn't stop.
Instead of 10 seconds,
it would go on for an entire year.
It would be challenging
to stand up through all this.
Everything not bolted down in your house
would likely topple to the ground.
Violent shaking would shift buildings
off their foundations,
creating massive property damage.
Even the most resilient
buildings would struggle
to withstand the constant vibration.
The financial and human costs
would be astronomical.
And if the earthquake kept going,
these costs would keep rising.
Hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of people
would be displaced from their homes.
Many would die.
If you were lucky enough
to be further from the epicenter,
this would all be less dramatic.
Usually, you'd only feel a gentle bump.
But because the earthquake wouldn't
end for a while, you'd feel a permanent
rolling and shaking sensation.
Your senses would be in
a constant state of conflict.
Your eyes would observe one thing
while your muscles feel another.
And your inner ears
would sense something
completely different.
These mixed signals would
overload your brain,
and you'd be feeling nauseous
most of the time.
Even if you don't usually experience
motion sickness, you'd feel queasy.
And there wouldn't be any relief.
Experiencing a regular earthquake
could leave you hypervigilant,
on constant alert for the next one.
You could be depressed
because your home no longer feels safe.
But living like this for one full year?
You'd have to rethink
every aspect of your life.
If the earthquakes remained
at a magnitude of less
than one on the Richter scale,
you probably wouldn't notice them.
In the small desert
town of Anza, California,
residents experienced small earthquakes
almost every day
and often several times in a row.
There were 6,913 earthquakes
between 2017 and 2018.
But they could still
live their everyday lives.
But if the earthquakes were higher
on the Richter scale,
you'd have to get used to constant
noise pollution.
This would affect your body's
stress response and quality of sleep.
In the long term, this could lead
to heart disease or even stroke.
Life would be challenging,
but it wouldn't stop.
You'd have to find some way
to get used to the quakes,
just like many people
in the Midwestern U.S.
have adjusted their daily life
to the threat of tornadoes.
The biggest challenge
would be rethinking
how we design our buildings.
There are already many
innovative techniques
that could reinforce these structures.
But you'd have to get more creative.
One out-of-the-box building material
that researchers could
explore is spider silk.
This material stiffens under pressure.
And when even more stress is applied,
it expands close to its breaking
point and hardens again.
This is precisely how a spider's web
reacts to the impact of an insect.
The damage from the collision is limited
to the span between spokes of the web.
The shock is significantly reduced,
so the net remains intact.
It may seem wild to imagine the buildings
of the future designed
and built using spider webs.
Maybe they'll even be designed
and constructed by spiders?
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.