Terry Rithaler sits at the switchboard in the seismological laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, where she answers earthquake inquire calls. "We can tell immediately if there's been an earthquake just by the telephones," she says. On wall is a cartoon depicting an operator and her switchboard tumbling into a fissure in the earth.

Photo is dated 1972.

Photo measures 10.25 x 8 inches.