U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 96-260

Scott: Talk about some of the World Conferences on Earthquake Engineering. You have already mentioned the 1980 World Conference and the Turkish coup.

Wallace: I shall have to step back a few years and report on the Fourth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Santiago Chile in January 1969. George Gates of the USGS also attended the conference. Following the conference George and I decided we had to visit the famous Atacama fault in the Atacama Desert just east of Antofagasta in northern Chile. Someone from the Geological Survey of Chile was to meet us at the airport, and we were pleased when it turned out to be a very attractive lady geologist. She drove us over the mountain range to the east and into the desert.

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest in the world, where years sometimes pass without any rain. We found the fault scarp easily, and hiked and drove along the fault for several kilometers. The scarp was remarkably well preserved, but no one knew when it had been formed. As we talk about this scarp now in 1995, our new techniques of paleoseismology would probably enable us to date the most recent several movements--earthquakes--that occurred along the fault.

Scott: Has anyone done that since, using the more advanced current techniques?

Wallace: Not that I know of personally, but somebody certainly may have, because so many geologists worldwide now keep up on paleoseismology. In any event, after seeing that spectacular fault scarp on the ground, George and I tried to find an airplane so we could get the kind of bird's-eye view you can see only from the air. That was easier said than done, however, because there were no planes for charter in Antofagasta. Our lady geologist escort did some inquiring at the airport and found that a flying club in Tokopilla north of Antofagasta might be helpful. A time was set to meet the plane, but engine trouble delayed that day. Next morning the plane and pilot arrived. We got in the plane to take off, but then the engine would not start. We were delayed until afternoon! Finally we did get off--with some trepidation--and we flew and returned safely. The flight allowed me to take some excellent photographs of the fault scarps--several scarps roughly parallel the east flank of the mountain range, a kilometer or so east of its base.

On that same trip to Chile, I also managed to get to Puerto Montt in southern Chile where, even nine years later, damage from the great 1960 earthquake was still recognizable.

Scott: You were involved in some exchanges with the Soviet Union, I believe. When did those exchanges take place?

Wallace: One of the first formal exchanges took place in September 1969 while the cold war was still quite active. But gaps in the cold war began to show, and perhaps our trip was one of those. That came about when Karl Steinbrugge headed a team to examine earthquake engineering practices in the Soviet Union, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to join the team.

The State Department briefed us on "Do's and Don'ts" to observe while in the USSR--things like taking no photographs of train stations or airports, for example. We were advised not to be surprised if our brief cases and luggage were gone through in our absence or at night.

There were great suspicions on both sides. In Moscow, we were assigned a lady administrator to take us around--"Mrs. G," we called her. We were all sure she was with the KGB because she seemed to have entre everywhere. After Moscow, we visited engineering and seismologic stations in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dushanbe, Tadzikian, and Tblisi, Georgia. Then we were allowed some leisure at Sochi on the Black Sea.

We began to ask if it would be possible to visit Leningrad, but the idea was immediately dismissed. One evening in our hotel room, we loudly protested to one another about not being permitted to visit Leningrad. Lo and behold, the next day we were told that Leningrad had been added to our itinerary.

Scott: Maybe the walls had ears?

Wallace: That was our conclusion, but it may have been only our paranoia working overtime. We certainly lived with a sense of tension, however, and I will relate just one example. Before leaving the states I knew we would visit the main seismological station in Uzbek. I also knew that my good friend, Richard M. (Pete) Foose, who had participated in early test-ban treaty negotiations in Geneva, had recently returned from Uzbek. Pete Foose was most recently a professor of geology at Amherst College (although he may have been at the Stanford Research Institute at the time). I wrote to Pete to see if he could suggest any contacts. His reply did give me many names of people, but the letter arrived just a few days before my departure from the U.S, so I decided to wait until reaching Tashkent to try to memorize the names.

We arrived in Tashkent late at night, and after getting settled in my hotel room, I got out Pete's letter to study the names. All was well until I reached page 2, where I found a disturbing line I had not read before, to the effect that, "I (Pete) tried to find out how many seismographs were deployed in Uzbek, but I was clearly denied this information. Perhaps you can find out." My God, I thought, here are orders from a U.S. official to spy! I went to bed, but thought about the State Department warning that our things might be searched, and could not sleep. I pictured myself in a Soviet jail.

Scott: How did this work out?

Wallace: I got up about 2:00 a.m., determined to destroy the incriminating page. First, I held the paper by the corner and lit it with a match, just the way spies do in movies. The paper wouldn't burn, as it was damp from being packed with damp clothes and towels. Next, I tore the sheet into small pieces and stood them in an ash tray and was again trying to burn them, when I realized that I was doing this in front of a window, where, no doubt, I was being watched from another window.

I then transferred my spy operation to the bathroom, intending to wash the evidence down the toilet. Remembering how poorly plumbing worked in many places, I thought, "The paper will clog the works, be recovered during repair, and then what"? Again I resorted to burning, although after creating a lot of smoke and charred paper, I realized the smoke was being wafted over the transom to the hall, clearly to set off a fire alarm!

Finally, however, I got all the paper at least charred, the charred paper crumbled and washed down the basin, but I still was left with a mess of black smear and black hands to be cleaned. Thankfully, I drew no attention, and returned to bed to sleep well through what was left of the night.

Scott: That must have been a pretty unsettling experience.

Wallace: Yes, it was. I'm not cut out for espionage! That brings to mind all the visits I later had from CIA and FBI investigators after each of many trips to the Soviet Union. Most of the questions they asked were routine, about where we had travelled and what institutes we had visited. But on one occasion I remember the CIA man asked me to try to find out certain things on my next trip. I told him that in no way would I accept a "spying" mission, even a suggestion of such status. I described my trauma when Pete Foose had inadvertently asked to find out about seismometers in Uzbek. I told him that despite his ID cards, I felt that he might well be from the KGB and was setting me up for arrest on my next trip to the USSR. I told him that no information I had was classified, and that I would tell it to anyone who came in off the street. But I could not tolerate, or risk, going to the Soviet Union again with even the slightest aura of suspicion about my intentions or mission.

Scott: What came after the trip to the Soviet Union with the Steinbrugge team?

Wallace: There were several trips fairly soon afterward, of which the highlights were interesting trips to New Zealand in 1970, and to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey in 1972. The trip to the Balkan countries concerned a UNESCO program titled, I believe, "A Seismotectonic Map Program for the Balkans."

Two geologists, one from the Western Block and one from the Eastern Block countries, were selected to give their independent appraisals of the project. I represented the West and V. V. Beloussov represented the East. We were shown the maps and how they were being prepared, and conferred with the specialists who were doing the work. It was a great learning experience for me, and I hope I contributed in small ways.

I have already described some adventures in Turkey with Professor Beloussov while travelling on this detail, but I shall refrain from expanding the Balkan story. I might add, however, that the trip and exposure to the people and politics of the Balkans helps me understand a little of what has been happening in the 1990s. At the time we all wondered what would happen when Tito died, and, indeed, several friends in Belgrade fairly accurately predicted today's chaos.

Wallace: This is just a funny story about our great earthquake engineering friend, Henry Degenkolb. On June 19, 1973, I took a trip to Nicaragua, where the Managua earthquake had occurred on December 23, 1972. I flew down to Guatemala City with George Plafker, where we happened to find Pierre St. Armand and Henry Degenkolb also on their way to the Nicaragua earthquake.

Pierre was a Caltech graduate who worked with the Navy at China Lake. He was noted not only for earthquake work but also for weather modification activities. Pierre said, "Why don't you join us? I have President Somoza's plane over here, and have the use of it to fly on to Managua." So we canceled our flight reservation and joined them, climbing aboard President Anastasio Somoza's plane.

We were in a wood-panelled cabin, with a restroom adjacent. We sat and visited, and were having a fine time, flying in and out of towering thunder clouds. At some point we missed Henry, who seemed to have been gone to the restroom for quite a while. Eventually we got a little worried, and at about the same time started hearing some banging noises coming from the direction of the restroom. One of us called out, "Henry, are you all right?" Henry's voice came through the wall, "I can't get out of this goddamned place. The door won't open. I've been working on it with my knife, trying to get some of the screws out." After a little pause, somebody said, "Why, Henry, that door slides open." He had been trying to open it out like a hinged door. So even eminent structural engineers are fallible, as are we all.

Scott: On the Nicaragua trip, you didn't encounter then-Nicaraguan President Somoza himself, I take it. He evidently was quite interested in the engineering side of the earthquake, having an engineering education himself. That is the impression I got from oral history interviews with Jack Meehan. On a visit to that earthquake, Jack spoke of having a personal session with Somoza, discussing earthquake effects, codes, professional liability and the like.

Wallace: Yes, I was invited to meet with President Somoza, but declined the invitation, but will not try to explain that here.

Wallace: In September 1973 I headed the first U.S. delegation of the Working Group on Earthquake Prediction, sent to learn more about the Soviet efforts in earthquake prediction. This was done under a USSR/USA protocol concerned with protection of the environment. The agreement was chaired by Russell Train, who served as head of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Nixon administration. A similar protocol was concerned with science.

Scott: Was there a reason why earthquake prediction was handled separately?

Wallace: The earthquake prediction program was not "separate," but I wondered why it had landed in the environmental protocol and not the science protocol. I understood at the time that it was because Gordon J. F. McDonald, a noted geophysicist, was a member of CEQ. Anyway, it was fortunate that it was where it was, because the earthquake prediction part of the environmental program always seemed way ahead of the other elements. I am sure that was because of the pre-existing international contacts within the seismological community. We did not have to start from scratch to build liaisons, but were given an opportunity to charge ahead with ideas that were already circulating internationally.

It was a pleasure to report progress at each of the joint meetings. A Soviet delegation had visited the U.S. in early 1973, and included V. Sadovskiy Igor L. Nersesov from the Institute of Physics of the Earth, Moscow, and S.Kh. Negmatulaev from the Tadzik Academy of Sciences. Even as late as 1973, there was still a sense of uneasiness on the part of the Soviet delegates. Dr. Negmatulaev, for example, refused to have alcoholic beverages at our home during their first visit to the U.S. A year or so later he told us that had been advised by authorities not to drink.

On his second visit to our house, however, he felt comfortable, and sampled just about all the "American drinks" and wines we could provide. That first social event at our home was honored by the presence of Shirley Temple Black, who had helped negotiate the agreement under which our program functioned. We had many things going for the program.

Scott: Did you go to the USSR again?

Wallace: Yes. Several other trips to the USSR were to attend business meetings for the agreement, but that first trip on the prediction business carried an aura of Cold War breakthrough. I always took particular delight showing our Soviet colleagues the wonders of the USA, highways, shopping centers, and grocery stores, hoping in a small way to demonstrate the benefits of our way over the Communist way. The Soviet scientists usually carried home items difficult to buy in the USSR, including hi-fi equipment, typewriters, and women's undergarments of the elastic variety. We always had philosophical discussions about religion, the democratic process, and the role of the private sector. Perhaps our propaganda served a larger mission in undermining Communism.

Scott: You seem to have gotten to quite a few places while chasing earthquakes and faults.

Wallace: Probably the "first" that I cherish the most was a trip into Soviet Central Asia to examine the Talas-Fergana fault. In total the Talas-Fergana fault extends from Kazakh SSR across Kirgiz SSR and into Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (Autonomous Region), China, a total of 900 km. In 1973 the U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Soviet Academy of

Sciences agreed to conduct a joint program on earthquake prediction. Soon afterward, I began to press for a chance to compare the great Talas-Fergana fault with my favorite, the San Andreas fault in California.

At the time I was chairing the U.S. delegation, so was given rather special treatment. After several exchanges back and forth, in August, 1975 I was scheduled to visit the Soviet field experiment in Garm, Tadzik. En route to Garm, my host, Igor Nersesov, told me that it had been arranged for me to see the Talas-Fergana fault. What excitement!

Scott: Talk a little about that experience.

Wallace: I'll start the story with our farewell dinner in Dushenbe, Tadzik, after formal meetings there and field work in the Garm area. Igor interrupted our meal to tell us we must leave to catch our plane. My wife, Trudy, who fortunately was able to accompany me on this trip--at our expense, I must add--said, "but I haven't finished my delicious fish." "Take it with you", Igor said. So Trudy wrapped two beautiful trout in paper napkins and stuffed them in her purse.

In an Aeroflot YAK 40, the small jet aircraft, we flew to Osh in eastern Uzbek SSR, not far from the Chinese border. At Osh we were picked up by jeep and driven, we sometimes felt "hurtled," through Andizhan and up the narrow road winding through the canyon of the Naryn River. Somewhere along the route we stopped for tea, during which Trudy took her fish out of her purse. But her purse wreaked of the fish and had to be discarded. Tea was served not at a table but rather at a raised platform which resembled a four-poster, hard, double bed.

Dark descended as we continued up the canyon, but finally we turned off the gravel road and found ourselves along the Karasu River in a grassy meadow. In the field of our headlights several tents were visible and we were shown to one of vivid orange and blue, complete with a flower in a small glass on a box beside the cot assigned to Trudy. The camp was lighted by a portable generator.

We gathered in the mess tent for a snack at the end of a long day's journey, and the snack was accompanied, as was so often the case, with plenty of vodka and toasting. Igor offered a toast to us, "To the first Americans, no the first foreigners, on the Talas-Fergana fault". That wasn't as newsworthy as being first on the Moon, but it was very special, nevertheless. Clearly the Institute had gone to great effort to get us there and to make our field investigation possible.

Scott: Was your camp actually on the Talas-Fergana fault?

Wallace: Yes. The deep, linear valley in which we were camped was an expression of the fault itself.

Scott: What did you find during your investigation?

Wallace: The next morning after a quick wash in the river and breakfast, we started out along the fault. My Soviet colleagues briefed me on the disagreement among Soviet geologists about the type and timing of movement on the Talas-Fergana fault. In 1961 the Soviet geologist V. S. Burtman had proposed that there had been a 250-km horizontal slip (right-lateral slip) or offset in about four hundred million years (since Devonian time). I gathered that our co-host, geologist V. N. Krestnikov, who was doing field investigations in the area, was very skeptical and not at all convinced that there had been such great movement, or indeed any movement in recent times.

The disagreements and different interpretations of field evidence reminded me of the decades-long contest between geologists of the Berkeley school and those of southern California about slip on the San Andreas fault. Now, in 1995, with overwhelming evidence of great strike slip gathered over the decades, and repeated records of strike slip during earthquakes, I think everyone accepts the idea of great offset along the San Andreas, but the consensus was slow coming.

Scott: Would you say a word or two more about the Berkeley and southern California contest, to make it clear what the two positions were?

Wallace: At the University of California, Berkeley, it seemed that the belief was that the San Andreas fault had had no more than about a kilometer or so of lateral (horizontal) displacement, whereas in southern California everyone seemed to believe in at least tens of miles of displacement. Mason Hill, who with Tom Dibblee later demonstrated hundreds of kilometers displacements, reviews the history of such concepts about the San Andreas fault in his 1981 paper. (Hill, Mason L., "San Andreas Fault: History of Concepts," Geological Society of America Bulletin, Part I, v.92, 1981, pp 112-131.)

On the second day out during our visit to the Talas-Fergana fault, we were driving along and I shouted, "Stop the car." Just across the valley, the fault was marked by small terraces and linear drainage channels. Most importantly, here were numerous small gulches clearly offset to the right where they crossed the fault trace. Having seen this, there was now no question in my mind but that strike slip characterized movement on the fault, and that there had been movement within geologically recent times.

Scott: It must have been pretty exciting to make such a definitive find?

Wallace: I was very gratified, but it did pose a sensitive problem. How was I to convey what I thought to Professor Krestnikov, the specialist and active investigator of the geology of the region? I pointed out the features carefully, and I believe that Professor Krestnikov was convinced that the only interpretation was the one of relatively recent horizontal slip (strike slip).

Later in the day we climbed up a 200-meter-high wall of huge angular boulders of dolomite and limestone. From the top we looked to the south where a great amphitheater was cut in the high cliffs. I had no doubt that this was the head of a giant landslide, and, indeed, Igor said that the landslide had been dated by Soviet geologists at between 6,000 and 7,000 years old.

The size and age of the landslide and its presence along the fault suggested that it might have been triggered by a large earthquake. Although this particular segment of the fault currently is rather seismically quiet, in 1946 a magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurred along a 150-km segment of the fault west of the Naryn River. Anyway to sum up, as a first, in my estimation our trip to the Talas-Fergana fault can scarcely be topped. (Wallace, R.E., The Talas-Fergana fault, Kirgiz and Kazakh, U.S.S.R., U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Information Bulletin, v.8, n.4, 1976, pp.4-13.)

Wallace: One of the most memorable trips was in 1976 when Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand Marcos and first lady of the Philippines, was putting on a conference called "The Survival of Humankind: The Philippine Experiment." Just before the meeting was to convene, there was a great earthquake (M 7.9) off the southern island of Mindanao. The earthquake was actually centered under Moro Gulf. It killed a lot of people and caused a great tsunami.

I received an invitation to attend the conference, and liking the title, I happily accepted. Mrs. Marcos had invited about 40 foreign specialists on everything from food to hazard reduction. I was included among those concerned with hazards, which included weather hazards, earthquakes, and so on. My wife still has my name tag from that conference, "Dr. Robert Wallace, Natural Disaster," which she thinks is very appropriate for me to wear at all times.

- An Evening at the Palace

Wallace: After I signed on for the conference, a man in New York City, whose name I have forgotten, became my contact. I will refer to him as Mr. X. Clearly he was a close associate of the Marcoses. The Philippine government was to pay my way and the authorization for me to attend came through the U.S. Department of State.

I was to deal with Mr. X in New York. When the big earthquake happened, I called Mr. X and asked if it might be possible for me to go to Manila a week or so early, so I could go down to see the Mindanao earthquake. He thought it could be arranged. This led to his saying, "Meet me at the Hyatt-Regency in Manila on such-and-such a day." So when I got to Manila, and to my room at the Hyatt, I called his number. He asked me to come over to his room, and added, "Would you like to go over to the Palace for dinner tonight?" "Yes, that's fine." "Do you have a formal dark suit?" "No, I have this old gray suit." "Well, that will have to do."

So I met him at 6:00 p.m., and a car and driver came for us. We were whisked off to the Presidential Palace, got out with much fanfare, and walked up the broad, gradual steps leading to the second floor. Freshly cut ferns surrounding lighted candles had been set out on each step to illuminate the stairs. Mr. X said, "We are supposed to meet them up in the music room." I wasn't sure just what was going on.

We paused by the music room, and a minute or so later Clare Booth Luce and her granddaughter arrived. We introduced ourselves, and promptly President and Mrs. Marcos arrived, as well as General Carlos Romulo of World War II fame. (General Carlos P. Romulo, 1899-1985) We went into the music room and gathered around a grand piano. Drinks were poured by servants, and the Marcos children came in. That was our little get-together.

Soon, however, Mrs. Marcos, who clearly was in charge of things that night, said, "Well, I think we had better go down to dinner." This was all a complete surprise to me. We marched down the stairs and walked into an enormous banquet room where a hundred or more people were seated at tables surrounding a big dance floor. Mrs. Marcos said to me, "We'd better have a receiving line." She went over to a little green-carpeted platform, and signalled for me to join her. We stood there and "received", shaking hands with all the hundred-plus people, and then sat down at a long head table under a beautiful canopy of capis shells. It was really glorious. Each place setting was superb, with many forks and knives in gold, and four or five wine glasses.

I was seated next to a famous Philippine writer and publisher, Karima Polotar. Toward dessert time dancers and performers of all sorts emerged with flames-and-sword acts, and the dance floor was aglitter with extravagant entertainment. Finally it was time to leave. Of course, there was nothing to do but "de-receive" everybody to shake everybody's hand once again, as people left.

Scott: Who was in the receiving line?

Wallace: I have no idea who was received. All I can remember is standing next to Mrs. Marcos and shaking hands with strangers. I can't recall that President Marcos helped in the "de-receiving."

Scott: You were treated as the special guest that evening, weren't you?

Wallace: It seemed that way. Fortunately, I did not have to make a speech. I think it was all decided on the spot, with Mrs. Marcos leading the way. Then, after everybody left, she said, "Let's go down to the library." President Marcos and a few others, including Clare Booth Luce, a party of five or six, also went downstairs, but Mrs. Marcos took me alone into the library to show me clippings about the President.

She clearly had something else in mind, and started telling me about the development of Manila Bay that she had wanted. It was already started and many buildings had been built. She wanted to know about the earthquake problem, so we talked about the problems of building on filled land in Manila Bay.

While we were talking, I asked whether there would be a chance to go down to investigate the Mindanao earthquake. She said, "Yes, can you be ready at about 6:00 in the morning?" "Of course." "Well somebody will pick you up at about six." Soon afterward we retired for the evening and I went back to the hotel with Mr. X. I had stepped into a world I had never imagined before.

- Visiting the Mindanao Earthquake

Wallace: There was a knock on my door at 6:00 a.m. the next morning, and here were two military men who had come with a car. I got my knapsack and followed them out to the car. Military police were in a car ahead of and behind us. Through Manilla we went with sirens screaming and lights flashing. At the airport we drove out to President Marcos's private plane. I climbed aboard and was directed to a single swivel chair, obviously for President Marcos, in the nice cabin behind the pilot. "If you need anything, just let us know."

Scott: That seems like a fine way to begin an earthquake site visit.

Wallace: I should say so. I had assembled all the maps I could get before I left, mainly of the Philippine fault, but also Warren Hamilton's superb USGS Professional Paper on the regional tectonics. After we got airborne the co-pilot came back and asked where I wanted to go. I showed him the maps and he suggested that I sit in the co-pilot's seat and guide the pilot. So down the Philippine fault we flew for several hundred miles, and then turned off to our destination at Cotabato in Mindanao.

There we found two big military helicopters waiting for us. George Pararas-Carayannis, from the tsunami warning center in Hawaii, was on board one. I sat on one side with a machine gunner behind me, and a row of riflemen in front of me. George was similarly situated and equipped on the other side. Off we went to look at earthquake effects.

One of the first places we landed was on Bongo Island in the middle of Mindanao Gulf. It was very pleasant there; a small village of bamboo and reed houses, mostly very primitive buildings, a lot of them on stilts along the edge of the water. There were also frame buildings which served as a school, I believe. The island had been hit by several tsunamis. We wandered out along a trail above the homes on the shoreline.

Suddenly the pilot said, "We must leave at once." Back to the helicopter we went. After we got airborne, I asked the pilot why he had gotten so upset. He said, "You didn't notice? There were no men in the village. We were being set up for ambush." In fact, a few days before the earthquake a half-dozen missionaries had been killed nearby on the mainland.

There were very active hostilities at the time. The Philippines were actually cut several ways. There were the Moslem insurgents in the south, the Marcos government, and then the Communists. One of the Communist leaders was captured while I was there. I was not prepared for all of this, but learned some current events as I went.

We left Bongo Island and went over to Cotabato, where we looked at the damage. Several reinforced concrete buildings were missing their first floors, and the several-story Harvardian School had tilted over and was a total loss. We spent the night in Cotabato. The floor of a small military office served as our bed.

The next day we flew to Lebak, where a tsunami had caused some amazing damage--beached boats and enormous piles of debris. From there we flew west across the Gulf to Zamboanga, where disaster headquarters had been set up. We learned that casualties numbered over 5,000.

The next morning we were to fly south to another site of major earthquake damage. By morning, however, the military had decided that the trip would be unsafe. In the past few days planes had been strafed by gunfire while flying through a narrow pass en route to our planned destination. Clearly we were in an active war zone.

At one of the villages on Moro Gulf several people volunteered the information that lights had been seen in the sky out over the gulf during the earthquake. While earthquake lights are still mysterious, clearly they have been seen during many earthquakes, and some observers claim they occur before earthquakes. The villagers pointed out to where the epicenter was. A big fault perhaps 200 km long ran under the gulf. One side of the fault had stepped up, displacing huge volumes of water and generating a tsunami.

We then met the President's plane again and flew back to Manila, circling Taal volcano, which was cooperating by erupting at the time. What more could a geologist ask?

- The Conference on Human Survival

Wallace: Following the earthquake excursion, I attended the conference on the "survival of humankind," which was what I had really gone for. Both President and Mrs. Marcos gave talks at different times in the meetings. They seemed to have a sense of mission and message--the President especially. He spoke of the Philippines as a potential go-between, linking Eastern culture and Western culture. He dwelled on that theme, and seemed to think that he personally had a special place in history.

Admittedly, with all the ostentation at the palace, such as the ornate place settings at dinner and the like, one couldn't help be aware how greedy and corrupt the Marcoses must have been. But on the other hand, there was this nugget of their seeing themselves and the Philippines as doing something good--as a potential for world betterment.

For the duration of the conference, each one of the forty attendees was provided with a brand-new car, a military driver, and a military escort, to serve our needs. We kept very busy attending the meetings and writing up the findings of the various workshops. But Mrs. Marcos had also arranged many pleasant parties and outings. Each one of the delegates was set up with a couple of matronly ladies to serve as our personal hostesses. And then at parties we always had several younger beauties in their butterfly dresses, not for any purpose--I should add, lest there be some misunderstanding--other than to serve as decorations for the occasion. Opulence prevailed. While it was very pleasant, I also found it disturbing.

Scott: Yes, it sounds like it was almost too much! On the other hand, it seems to have been a serious conference.

Wallace: Yes, it was a very serious conference. In addition to us forty foreign delegates, there were dozens of Philippine specialists. Attendees represented a wide variety of subjects--they ranged from rice and food experts to science and technology specialists.

- An Outing on the Presidential Yacht

Wallace: Although it was a very serious conference, it had its lighter moments too. At about noontime on the last day, Mrs. Marcos announced that she thought we had been working too hard. In fact, we really had been working, trying to write up reports on the sessions. She said, "Let's retire and go out to the President's yacht." You could see, however, that the lower-ranking people of the administration were thrown into a panic, not having been asked to plan for this. There was a lot of buzzing at the podium, and then she said, "They can't have the yacht ready at 1:00, but let's gather at about 3:30.

So in due course our cars began taking us out to the yacht, and by 4:00 everything was ready for us. The big fantail was full of hanging ferns, and a spectacular spread of food had been laid out. We all sat down. In the seating arrangement, we were alternated with a matronly hostess and a young beauty with a butterfly dress. There was a band and all of us men danced with Mrs. Marcos.

At one point President Marcos came out and announced, "I've just received a telegram that Chairman Mao of China has died." There was a lot of buzzing conversation; it was a major moment in history. A little later four of us were with President Marcos in a small lounge just off the fantail. We asked what he thought the death of Mao might mean. He said that he disagreed with Mao on many things, but also commented, "The old hands create stability. Now we don't know--things are likely to be unsettled. The younger people may cause instability in China." He continued, "We were planning to have our daughter go over to Beijing to the university, but now I don't know--I would be very uneasy." To hear that kind of personal reaction from a head-of-state was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

The yacht headed for Corregidor, although I understood that no outing there had been planned. However, we did land at the dock near Corregidor's fortress and about 50 people disembarked for a tour. By now it was dark, and there were only two flashlights available for the fifty of us to use as we wound our way up through the crumbling Corregidor remains. It was a wonder nobody tripped or was injured. Nevertheless, being part of a private tour of Corregidor led by Ferdinand Marcos was something to remember.

- A Traumatic Trip Home

Wallace: I was due to leave for home right away, but came down with the flu and could not even get out of bed the next day. My wife called to say that her sister had died, and she needed me home. On the leg of the trip aboard Philippine Airlines between Manila and Hawaii, I truly thought I was going to die. I could not raise my head off the seat to have a cup of tea!

That is the end of this story about one earthquake trip. Some of my friends kid me about mingling with the Marcoses, and other dictators, but it would be hard to get a more personal insight into a bit of history of the time. Another dictator story involves a trip to Managua, Nicaragua, which I mentioned earlier.

Wallace: In 1978 I went to China with a delegation led by George Housner, which was primarily concerned with earthquake engineering. Among other things, under Henry Degenkolb's tutelage I looked at construction, for example picking mortar out of masonry walls. Henry showed me the hardness test. At the weak end of the spectrum is mortar that can be pulled out using ones bare fingers--not very good, of course--and from that it grades up to very good tough mortar. During the years of chasing earthquakes, I learned many bits of structural engineering lore like this from people like Henry Degenkolb, George Housner, and Karl Steinbrugge.

The China delegation included George Housner (delegation chair), Paul Jennings (reporter), Ray Clough, Henry Degenkolb, Joe Penzien, Teng Ta-Liang ("Leon" Teng), myself, and a few others--numbering twelve members in all. The National Academy of Sciences report on the trip was published in 1980. (Jennings, P.C., Earthquake Engineering and Hazards Reduction in China; A Trip Report of the American Earthquake Engineering and Hazards Reduction Delegation, National Academy of Sciences, CSCPRC Report n.6, 1980.)

Scott: (Editor's note: Members of the delegation were: George W. Housner, chairman, Ray Clough, Genevieve C. Dean, Henry J. Degenkolb, William J. Hall, Paul C. Jennings, Liu Shih-Chi, R.B. Matthiesen, Joseph Penzien, Teng Ta-Liang, Robert E. Wallace, and Robert V. Whitman.)

Wallace: At one point, Leon Teng and I, the two earth-science representatives, separated from the main delegation in order to look into earthquake prediction in the Cheng-Tu area. We wrote up our findings, which were published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, as well as in the official report of the trip. We looked into the Chinese use of animal behavior, and what they call macroscopic evidence of earthquakes before they occur, gas emissions from the ground, and many other things like that.

In the BSSA version, we included an editorial comment on the Chinese program on earthquake prediction. Leon and I both found it to be lacking in rigorous scientific analysis, but on the other hand, with hundred of thousands of volunteers contributing, they had gathered a vast amount of data, data such as we would have a difficult time accumulating in the United States. I have had a lot of requests for copies of that paper. (Wallace, R.E. and Teng, Ta-Liang, "Prediction of the Sungpan-Pingwu Earthquake, August 1976," Bulletin of the Seismologic Society of America, v.70, n.4, 1980, pp.1199-1223.)

While in Cheng-Tu I got up one morning and soon began to feel very faint. I returned to my hotel room immediately, and was provided a nice lady Chinese doctor. There did not seem to be anything really wrong. The delegation had to continue on with the trip, because all the reservations were made, so I was left behind, but Leon Teng stayed with me.

It may seem strange to say that the illness proved fortunate, but that is how I view the turn of events. The result was a marvelous sojourn for Leon and me. Leon speaks fluent Chinese, including the dialects. He was born in China and went through a most amazing history in getting out of China during the Japanese invasion in World War II. He told of flying with an uncle in a plane dead-heading for Taiwan, and eventually going from there to the United States to earn his Ph.D. He became a fine and highly respected American seismologist and professor.

While I was on my sick bed, the greatest comfort came from Joe Penzien. Whenever I see him, I compliment him on his bedside manner. Had he chosen to become a physician, he would have soothed many a patient. After a few hours of illness I recovered, however, so Leon and I wandered around Cheng-Tu with no formal schedule. He was my guide, interpreter and partner. As we visited museums and parks, he explained Chinese history, poetry, literature and art. Americans being rare in China then, wherever we went a hundred or more people gathered around. They stared at us, followed us, and watched everything we did. In the hotel where we stayed, some of the help were trying to learn English. They had a funny little old record player, and records of some very old and very British English. I remember the voice on the record carefully pronouncing and spelling "Nay" instead of "No."

The Chinese loved to try their English on us. One day we were taking pictures in a park, and I was doing some little sketches. One curious observer there found out that Leon could speak Chinese, and a long discussion ensued. As a vignette of Chinese life, we learned that our friend was waiting for his wife to get off work. He had a job in another city 100 kilometers away, but had gotten a leave to come to Cheng-Tu to visit her.

Ancient Canals and Trenches in China (1984)

Wallace: I am tempted to tell of one more overseas trip chasing earthquakes and faults. In 1984, after a meeting of the International Geological Correlation Program (IGCP) in Kobe, Japan, our geologic colleagues at the State Seismological Bureau in Beijing, China, took Bob Bucknam, Tom Hanks and me to Ningxia and Gansu provinces. We were interested in examining ancient fault scarps which had been created during ancient great earthquakes of known date. Only in such places as China, with its long recorded history, could we hope to get the data on ancient events we needed for our study of scarp degredation rates. We were sure that from such data we could learn how to tell the age of old scarps of unknown age, and provide useful criteria for dating scarps everywhere and, thus, prehistoric earthquakes.

- Fault Offset of the Great Wall

Wallace: On a previous trip we had learned that the Great Wall had been offset by faulting accompanying an earthquakes in 1739 in Ningxia Huizu Zizhiqu (Ningsia Hui Autonomous Region). We actually had passed by the site on the train a few years previously, but could not see the offset wall at all well at a distance and through the train window. We also had begun to hear stories that in Gansu province there were scarps related to the big earthquake at Gaotai in 180 AD. We were excited by the prospects of what these two sites would reveal.

The offset of the Great Wall was only a few kilometers from the small village of Shizuishan where we stayed, following a train ride from Beijing. We were followed everywhere by 100 or more people curious about these foreigners. Each day our crew from the State Seismological Bureau and we would drive in vans out to the Great Wall where it had been broken and offset by fault movement in 1739. We measured fault scarps and offsets of the Great Wall, as well as documenting the construction of the Great Wall itself.

We walked and worked atop the Great Wall and along its base, and measured trenches and berms that paralleled the north (Mongolian) side of the Wall. Later we learned from Professor Arthur Waldron, a China scholar at Princeton, and an expert on the Great Wall, that such defense trenches had never been accurately measured and documented in the literature.

After about a week's work at the north end of the 1739 fault scarp, we moved to Yinchuan about 200 km south along the Huang He (Yellow River) and near the south end of the zone of faulting. There the scarps were even more spectacular and in places exceeded 5.5 m in height. Up until that time, I believe, these were the oldest and biggest scarps to be measured accurately for scarp calibration purposes. What an opportunity!

(Zhang Buchun, Liao Yuhua, Guo Shunmin, Wallace, R. E., Bucknam, R. C., Hanks, T. C., "Fault Scarps Related to the 1739 Earthquake and Seismicity of the Yinchuan Graben, Ningxia Huizu Zizhiqu, China", Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v.76, n.5, 1986, pp. 1253-1287.)

- Ancient Canals in Gansu Province

Wallace: Our next target was the reported faulting produced during the 180 AD earthquake near Gaotai in western Gansu Province. After stops at the west end of the Great Wall and a tourist side trip to the incredible Magao Grottos carved in volcanic ash, where a treasure of documents was found, we were taken well off the main highway along the Old Silk Road to see the faulting.

We labored up some dry washes which carried drainage off the Yu Mu Shan (Elm Mountains), and finally came to a halt amid walls and columns of fairly firm alluvial gravels. As Tom Hanks exclaimed, "This is the most bizarre land I have ever imagined!" I thought to myself, "These are fault scarps? No way," It did not take long before I said to our SSB colleagues, "These are the remnants of canals".

Scott: Were these canals known before, and to what and when did they supply water?

Wallace: Those were some of our first questions. Even after later historical research by our Chinese colleagues back in Lanchow, only indirect references seem to have been made of the canals earlier. The canals head at the Li Yuan He (Dasha River) and reach about 50 km to the abandoned walled City of Camels.

Where the wash that gave us access to the canals crossed them, we found four parallel canals. These seemed to range widely in degree of degradation and thus antiquity. Eventually we decided that the oldest might date from before Christ. The largest canal is about 30 meters wide and 6 meters deep. Our tentative interpretation was that the canals had served as water conveyers and possibly also as defensive barriers.

Unfortunately, it started to rain a few hours after we arrived in the dry wash, so our examination ended all too soon. We did prepare a short paper that has been published, and we hope others will note this and someday carry out adequate studies. (Wallace, R.E., Bucknam, R.C., Hanks, T.C., "Ancient Engineering Geology Projects in China: A Canal System in Ganzu Province and Trenches Along the Great Wall in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region," Engineering Geology 36, 1994. pp.183-195.)

Scott: What other trips or explorations stand out in your mind?

Wallace: So many images well up in my mind, but I don't want this to turn into a travel log. Two months in Japan in the early spring of 1984 are memorable. I was hosted by the Geological Survey of Japan, Yoshi Kinugasa specifically, and all expenses were paid by the Japanese Industrial Technical Association. My wife, Trudy, was able to accompany me.

Yoshi Kinugasa and many other geologists, T. Matsuda of Tokyo University's Earthquake Research Institute, A. Okada professor at Osaka University, among them, took us throughout western and central Japan to examine active faults. We plodded through rice fields in snows of February, stayed and ate almost entirely in Japanese hotels and restaurants, and travelled by car, bullet train, and busses. We headquartered at Tsukuba, the science city where the Geological Survey of Japan is headquartered. Wouldn't you know that I would run into another U.S. earthquake chaser there. One morning in the Sunroot Hotel when we went for breakfast, there was Henry Degenkolb having his breakfast. Earthquakers seem to be everywhere.

Scott: Yes, it seems that when each earthquake occurs world wide, some earthquake engineer, geologist or seismologist happens to be nearby. As we talk today, the terrible earthquake just happened in Kobe, Japan, and a conference on earthquake disaster response was being held not far away in Osaka.

Wallace: The first on-site radio report I heard the day of the Kobe earthquake, January 17, 1995, was by Charles Scawthorn, a member of EERI.

Scott: Would you like to talk about any other trips?

Wallace: I can't end this set of travel logs without remembering a fabulous trip to China in 1985 to attend a conference and field trip for the International Geological Correlation Project, No. 208. The project was under UNESCO and was created to compare active faults world wide. I can think of no better way to dispense information throughout the world, and to learn as an international team, than by such UNESCO projects. The importance cannot be overemphasized, for example, of standing on a fault with colleagues from many countries and debating and pointing out to each other what we see and how we interpret the evidence. Each of us has had unique backgrounds and experiences.

Scott: Elsewhere we have talked about education techniques, but this would seem to one of the most effective.

Wallace: I should say so. I strongly agree.

Another trip in 1990, which I considered to be quite an honor, stemmed from an invitation to help the Geological Survey of New Zealand celebrate New Zealand's 200th anniversary. I was asked to give a series of lectures in Lower Hutt and Wellington, and to be available for press conferences.

Trudy went with me and, inasmuch as we had many friends in the country, the several weeks there was delightful. They even managed to have a rather strong earthquake on the North Island in the vicinity of Hawke Bay. I guess earthquakes tend to follow us earthquake nuts.

Scott: You have surely had some fascinating experiences in your geological and earthquake travels.

Wallace: Yes. As Bob Bucknam said as we stood atop the Great Wall of China where the fault break occurred in 1739, where no westerners had stood before, "What duty we have drawn! Ah, but somebody had to do it!"

Over the years, wherever I was doing geologic studies throughout the US or overseas, I repeatedly pinched myself, and said, "And you get paid to do this?" The exploration and discovery have thrilled me always.

Back to contents -- On to next section

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1996/of96-260/wallace-X.html
Page Contact Information: Michael Diggles
Page Last Modified: March 9, 2007