| When the Snakes Awake |  | Author: Helmut Tributsch
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy Used: $4.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 1734788
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 248
ISBN: 0262200449
Dewey Decimal Number: 001.94
EAN: 9780262200448
ASIN: 0262200449
Publication Date: September 1982
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Product Description
Two days before an earthquake struck Helice, Greece, in 373 B.C., the snakes, weasels, and worms deserted the city. Minutes before the Naples quake of 1805, oxen, sheep, dogs, and geese cried out in unison. A herd of horses tore loose and ran off in panic just prior to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Helmut Tributsch thinks that these accounts are more than mere superstition and old wives' tales. In this book, he presents the first plausible explanation of why animals behave in unusual ways prior to the onset of an earthquake. Scientists and nonscientists alike will find fascinating reading in his unusual study.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fascinating, readable, paradigm-changing July 19, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tributsch gives the reader a book that is based on both historical accounts and conventional/theoretical earth science. For me, having lived through upwards of several hundred minor and major quakes in my misspent youth, it provided tantalizing hints about the origin of earthquake precursors I repeatedly observed. Enlivened by personal accounts, by historical reports, and by the author's own thoughts on quake behavior, this is a rich and compelling read.
Thanks to Tributsch's groundbreaking work -- THE book that made it "okay" for scientists to publically express their own quake precursor observations -- studies continue to reveal the multifaceted nature of precursor events.
Excellent book for the literate lay reader, and a good paradigm-shaker for conventional earth scientists.
Helmut Tributsch---ahead of his time July 15, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Folks,
This book you must read and must possess whether you believe or disbelieve that animals can predict earthquakes. I have already worn out two copies of my own since it was first published in 1982. I am so pleased that it has been reprinted, although I do not know if it contains new information. I do know that as a geologic reviewer, I found no errors in the previous printings.
Tributsch was originally denied publication in the U.S. and Great Britain, with the mainstream critics claiming it was a collection of anectdotes. After publication in his native German it was deemed so valuable that it was translated by M.I.T. Press and published in English.
Tributsch is a true scientist and he does not claim to have all of the answers; however, in my 60 years of studying earthquakes, I have never found a more valuable study in unconventional efforts to anticipate some of the greatest examples of "unpredictable" natural phenomena.
Geologist Jim Berkland, MS, CEG 58, Fellow Geol. Soc. America
 Thorough, earnest, but uncritical and based on a bad theory July 26, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Dr. Tributsch presents a dense compilation of a huge number of anecdotes of animal misbehavior before earthquakes. He then presents a discussion, nearly as comprehensive, of the ways cracking rock might produce physical changes in the ground and air to incite the animals.
The layman learns a lot about how animals behave and what bothers them. The stories come from around the world, and from prehistory up to the present.
Dr. Tributsch is clearly compassionate, and frustrated that few other scientists take his work seriously.
Unfortunately, the theory that pervasive cracking precedes most large earthquakes bit the dust in the early 1980s. Worse, many of the dramatic precursory phenomena described in ancient literature have revealed no analogs since scientific instruments have been producing vastly more accurate recording of events around the time of recent earthquakes, casting doubt on the veracity of such legends.
So this book is not promising for learning new earthquake science (also, it is now 24 years out of date), and it is too serious for a light read. Although his theories have not yet exhausted their most ardent adherents, this book is difficult to recommend to anyone outside of the history of science on the wrong track.
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