than they ever have. However, mankind's rapid expansion into new areas of the globe has made it far more likely that human settlement will be adversely affected by natural disasters than ever before.

We're also becoming aware of the potential for natural disasters that we had no knowledge of even 30 or 40 years ago. For instance, nobody understood the true nature of the threat posed by the Wasatch Fault until fairly recently. As a geologist who has done numerous fault rupture hazard studies in Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, and Utah Counties in recent years, I can state with some authority that very few residents who live along the Wasatch fault understand the certainty or the potential magnitude of a seismic event on their particular segment of the fault. It IS going to happen. And there is a surprisingly high probability, given the frequency of earthquakes along each fault segment, that it will happen during many of our lifetimes.