Something I discovered at Space.com that was interesting... Earth Moves, Under Your Feet, Always 01 April 2002: Using the satellite-based Global Positioning System, scientists have found what they say is an ongoing earthquake in California. The temblor, a so-called slow earthquake, has been underway since about Feb. 7, according to geologist Meghan Miller of Central Washington University. Miller and colleagues report in last week's issue of Science that these quakes, which no one feels, occur below the region where Earth's tectonic plates are stuck and release strain during earthquakes, and above the region where a fault slips continuously. "Understanding these 'silent earthquakes' that we have been missing all these years will have a profound effect on our ability to predict hazards from volcanoes and earthquakes," said Jim Whitcomb of NSF's division of earth sciences, which funded the research.
Lucky Californians Fortunnately, these silent earthquakes mean the tectonic plates are slipping one over the other without harm. The trouble will begin when they stop doing this and the tensions will start to build up. If the tensions grow high enough, they could cause the Big One. Lucky Calfornians (for the time being) and lucky me that live in a earthquake-free region.
Well, I thought that I lived in a geologically calm locale. Come to find out it has a rare history of earthquakes in the general area. I think the last epicenter was around St. Louis... I never could understand the Californians attitude towards earthquakes. They were more afraid of hurricanes than earthquakes. To me the idea that the ground could jump up and slap you unannounced is a lot more terriffing than a hurricane I know is coming for at least a week in advance.
I live in Cordoba, Argentina, where the last earthquake happened about 200 million years ago. We have, however, some "earth shakers", in the range of 4 in the Mercali scale, that almost nobody feel --only those living at the 12th and higer stories of skyscrapers. Sometimes we have "big tremors" (back in 1978) when there was a big earthquake in Caucete, province of San Juan, about 500 kilometers to the west. That region is in the foothill of the Andes, so it has a long story of earthquakes, with the last "big one" in San Juan city in Jan, 12th, 1944. Our Patagonia is also an earthquake-free region, so that's why some years ago the government thought it would make a nice place for a nuclear repository for nuclear wastes. There are almost no rains in that specific area (no possible filtering of radiation to underground waters), and the last recorded seismic movement there was estimated by geologists as more than 250 million years ago, when the Andes were being born. Unfortunately, the greens didn't like the idea (they don't like anything related to radioactivity, although we live in a highly natural radioactive world) and launched an irrational campaign that froze the project. That left us with the problem of storing spent nuclear fuel in safe places (presently, this nuclear residues are kept at huge pools at the nuclear stations...) The moment they get filled, they would have to build another, and another, and another, until the greens come down to rationality and see there are many safe ways to dealing with those residues. Until now, those highly radioactive materials have been kept under 4 meters of plain water! And not a single gamma ray has escaped the pools. The whole situation is absurd, the greens are firmly opposed to ANY solution to the nuclear waste problem, they oppose storing them, they oppose recycling them, they oppose nuclear energy as a whole. They don't propose solutions --they only propose banning nuclear energy without any suggestions as what to do with the radioactive waste. It is insane! Regarding hurricanes, in our region we have two or three times in the year some tornadoes (not the kind of whirlwinds they have in the midwest USA) but sudden strong southern winds of about 160 - 200 km/h that takes roofs away from barns, houses, destroy entire forests, etc. They last for about 15 minutes, but when gone, the destruction is enormous.
