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Midwestern Fault Zones Are Still Alive
sciencehabit writes "The occasional quakes rattling the New Madrid Seismic Zone, a series of Midwestern faults named for a small town in the Missouri Bootheel, aren't aftershocks of the massive quakes that rocked our fledgling nation more than 2 centuries ago, a new study suggests. In other words, modern-day quakes are signs that the faults in the region are still accumulating stress—and sometimes releasing it as fresh rumblings."
Can't be all that juice pumped into the ground.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The best thing that could happen to Midwest geography would be growing a mountain range... An east-west one, so that it'd be tolerable in winter, as long as you're south of it, and tolerable in summer, as long as you're north.
This segues nicely with a question I've been idly wondering.
Consider all natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tornados, volcanoes, hurricanes, forest fires (kinda natural), tsunamis, mudslides, etc.
Now consider all human safety factors, such as crimes of violence, unsafe nuclear/chemical plants, likelihood of being targeted/invaded by a foreign entity, random government oppression, and so on. And I suppose you should consider automobile fatality rates (which probably outweigh all other factors combined).
Plus toss in random other safety factors such as poisonous insects/spiders/snakes, rising ocean levels, and whatnot.
Now where in the world would you say is the safest place to live?
Maybe central Canada somewhere?
I'm just askin'. It't not like I live my life by these considerations (though I have shied away from Western North America a bit... ya know, 'cause o the big one).
Seriously, who writes this stuff? I remember a minor earthquake we had in Michigan in the mid-80s. Why would they suddenly stop? Geological activity occurs over geological time scales, which is to say, thousands, even millions of years.
It's all y'all's fault.
From the article ... "But some scientists don't find the team's results convincing."
No doubt caused by global warming... I'm sure.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I'll never forget the Nova special on PBS about 10 years ago, "Welcome to Nashville, a city waiting to die."
Seems that area, not California, is the site of the most powerful earthquake in recorded history. And with building codes nothing like California.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Still have a few oil company shills lurking the influential threads of Slashdot, I see.
The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, or about 1/22,500,000th older than it was when the last major earthquake hit in New Madrid.
For comparison, that's like being surprised that the US is roughly the same as it was 5.5 minutes ago.
Other fun Deep Time trivia: if the entire Earth's history were compressed into a 24 hour day, with the start being midnight yesterday and the current time being midnight tonight, then its surface was overrun with dinosaurs at 11:40PM. Modern Man came on the scene around 11:59:56PM.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is truly asinine.
"The occasional quakes rattling the New Madrid Seismic Zone, a series of midwestern faults named for a small town in the Missouri Bootheel, aren’t aftershocks of the massive quakes that rocked our fledgling nation more than 2 centuries ago, a new study suggests. The analysis reinvigorates a debate about the true level of seismic risk that those fault zones pose."
Two hundred years of data is enough to build a reliable prediction of future seismic activity?
No fucking duh that the Midwest is still active and dangerous.
This is absolutely silly.
Aftershocks, 200 years later, are they sure what the term means?
...to this day, the strongest earthquake I have felt was the 5.0 in 1987 in Illinois.
We all know these brothels, why make a news article about it?
Yes, they rattle our junk, but we like it.
there is a statistical incidence that wants to correlate heavy fracking with earthquakes
No, there is not. REAL studies produce no such link. Lots of luddite anti-Frackers like to claim it's so though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Still have a few oil company shills lurking the influential threads of Slashdot, I see.
There is a LOT of oil money from the Gulf trying to put a lid on Fracking. Nice to see the AC's are getting paid handsomely to try and stomp out independence from a barbaric region of the earth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Scientists determine that the sun will still rise tomorrow, the moon is still orbiting the earth, and water is still wet.
Liar liar well on fire:
What are you, ten?
So sad you can't even do basic Google searches, all of your links have been
debunked.
You really will believe anything your masters spoon-feed you, won't you? What a shame that critical thinking has been so totally disabled by the green movement, once you strong and useful, now just a tool to be used by Arab oil interests to stop franking from slowing down the money flow.
I guess you have no interests in stopping the flow of money from the west going to prop up cultures that horribly abuse women and homosexuals. You may as well be casting stones yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
all that Arab oil money that funded the Matt Daemon anti-fracking film. Fracking and American jobs BAD! Arab oil and dependence on unstable 6th century dictatorships GOOD!
We all KNOW "big oil" is EVIL (when it's run by Americans or Europeans) but it's WONDERFUL (when it's run by Arabs, and) when it funds the anti-fracking efforts and some of the activists who fight against American/Canadian/British oil and coal (supporting windmills and solar panels, which can never meet a significant percentage of U.S. energy needs) leaving the U.S. in need of Arab oil...
call, not cal
Egypt, not egypt
ulcers, not uncers
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm guessing you either weren't in California for Loma Prieta in 1989 or were in one of the areas that barely felt it, then. :-p
People look at plate tectonics like it is happening on a flat plane. The edges between them are not straight. As they move, pressure builds up, and not just on the edges. It has to be released somewhere. The east and gulf coasts were made as the mountains inland eroded. The west coast are collections of bits of land tacked on the craton as it moved around over time. It is not one solid piece, and doesn't act as one.
Can said Midwestern earthquake swallow Chicago, and where is the best vantage point where I can sit with my popcorn and watch?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I grew up not far from New Madrid. While I lived in the area, there was no shortage of theories and speculation about when the fault was going to let "the Big One" go and kill us all. Hell, we got out of class for about a week when I was in middle school, because some famous geologist had said, "This date is when it's going to happen."
Of course, the big quake never happened. We went about our lives as if nothing had changed, because it hadn't. Now I live a few hundred miles from there, and I still chuckle when I hear these scientists speculate that the fault is going to figuratively explode, "sometime within the next 50 years." Hell, they've been telling us that for... well, over 50 years. Not too worried.
That said... you wanna see something freaky? Go for a drive down MO-67 towards New Madrid. You know how, when they blast through hillsides to build highways in most places, you can see that the exposed strata is almost perfectly horizontal? Around New Madrid, it's at more like a 45 degree angle.
There's just something eerie about that... and I love it!
GO MO!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It's not true across the board, it's true of middle eastern oil sources that see countries becoming far more independent due to fracking and see a cash cow dwindling. Doesn't change the fact that the anti-Fracking movement is HEAVILY funded by oil sources.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley