When the first trail-weary Mormon settlers arrived in the Salt Lake area of Utah in 1847, they proclaimed it to be "the place." They did not know, however, that the spectacular landscapes of the Wasatch Range and adjacent valleys had been largely shaped by numerous powerful earthquakes. The people of Utah were first publicly informed of the danger that threatens them in 1883 in the Salt Lake Tribune, when G.K. Gilbert of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) warned that future violent earthquakes on the Wasatch Fault could be disastrous for the growing towns the settlers had built.
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