Word: molten
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...earth is constantly moving underfoot. Its surface, cracked like ancient pottery, is broken into 15 large pieces. These pieces of crust, called plates, restlessly roam about, driven by plumes of molten rock that roil up from the planet's superheated core. Many of the world's largest earthquakes occur at the boundaries of such plates. The San Andreas fault system divides the Pacific plate and the North American plate, which grind past each other at the pace of 2 in. a year. But this movement of the plates is not uniform. Along fault zones the plates tend to become "locked...
...becomes as wild as surf. The solid is abruptly fluid. Normally, earth is the refuge, the stability, the foundation of things. The earth should be alive only to grow vegetables and flowers. Now the earth itself becomes a beast, all teeth and gashes and sudden topplings. Reality has turned molten and violent...
McPhee's heroes are not content to go with the flow, be it the Mississippi River's wanton meanderings, the angry surge of molten rock from an Icelandic volcano, or the periodic slide of real estate in California's San Gabriel Mountains, where waterborne debris can roar down hillsides and turn million- dollar dream houses into nightmares for owners and insurance companies. McPhee's strength is the odd detail of natural disaster: "The house became buried to the eaves. Boulders sat on the roof. Thirteen automobiles were packed around the building, including five in the pool . . . The stuck horn...
...were playing with a child's Erector Set, the crane operator maneuvers a ladle filled with 230 tons of molten iron toward a giant furnace and pours into its maw a glowing glob of 3000 degrees F metal. After 45 minutes in the oxygen-fired furnace, the iron turns into liquid steel, which a computer-controlled casting machine quickly forms into slabs 40 ft. long. Presto! In just 3.8 worker-hours, one-third less than the U.S. industry's average, this modern plant has produced a ton of steel. It is one of the most efficient mills in the world...
...make more steel per worker, the industry carried out a long-overdue modernization drive. As recently as 1974, one-quarter of all steel in the U.S. was still being produced by old-fashioned open-hearth furnaces, which take eight hours to turn molten iron into steel, compared with 45 minutes for the more efficient oxygen-fired furnaces. Since 1982, American steel companies have poured $9 billion into upgrading their mills. Open hearths now produce only 5% of domestic steel...