At 21 km from the epicentre of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, the city of Santa Monica in California may have hoped to avoid serious damage. But it was shaken with a surprising intensity, equal to that felt around the epicentre. Now Paul Davis at the University of California at Los Angeles and co-workers believe that underground geologic acoustic lenses focused the vibrations, producing concentrated spots of damage far from the epicentre (P Davis et al 2000 Science 289 1746).
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