“I’m really happy to be out here,” Carl Tape says as he stands on a pyramid of dry gravel, 20 feet high. “I’ve been thinking about this earthquake for 10 years.” Tape, a seismologist at the University ...

For a long time, ghost towns were the forgotten corners of the map. Abandoned mines, empty main streets, and crumbling storefronts sat quietly while travelers sped past on highways to somewhere else.