Man lives on the earth with geological consent, writes Simon Winchester, author of “Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories.” Winchester has written extensively about geology and weighs in on the Japan quake and whether we are prepared for disaster here in the United States. He says that the earth is littered with the ruins of cities built in precarious locations and further, that it is the instability of the planet which has created some of its most beautiful features (and most coveted property).