By Sid Perkins
From San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union
The largest inland earthquake to strike North America in more than a century shook south central Alaska on Nov. 3, 2002 (SN: 11/16/02, p. 307: Available to subscribers at Shaked Alaska: A sleepy fault wakes and reveals new links). Small pulses in atmospheric pressure detected in Fairbanks soon after the quake suggest that the magnitude 7.9 temblor literally moved mountains, briefly turning them into 3-kilometer-tall granite loudspeakers.