An offshore quake in 1775 measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale knocked down walls and chimneys in Beantown, but it took another 200 years for the city to start thinking about precautions. Today, Boston is filled with old buildings that would crumble in the event of a significant quake — that is, if the soft fill beneath two-thirds of downtown doesn't liquefy first. To make matters worse, the rocks beneath the surface of New England are cooler in temperature than those beneath California, and would more readily transmit — and even amplify — the force of a quake. A 6.0 in Boston would be far more deadly than a similar quake in California, claiming 360 lives and causing up to $12 billion in property damage.