1. gregladen
  2. Earthquake Dangers

Earthquake Dangers

By gregladen on April 25, 2008.

Did you ever notice how when there is one earthquake in the news, more follow right away, often leading to the impression that earthquakes come in clusters? Well, maybe they do come in clusters, but if they do, it is not the cluster you are observing on the news. That is entirely an effect of copycat journalism.

The recent earthquake in Illinois was, unfortunately for the journalistic appetite, not followed by any other really interesting earthquakes. So instead, we have two news items about earthquakes that have not happened ... yet ...

Earthquake in Illinois could portend an emerging threat from PhysOrg.com

To the surprise of many, the earthquake on April 18, 2008, about 120 miles east of St. Louis, originated in the Wabash Valley Fault and not the better-known and more-dreaded New Madrid Fault in Missouri's bootheel.

[...]

On shaky ground: UH Prof finds geological faults threaten Houston from PhysOrg.com

After finding more than 300 surface faults in Harris County, a University of Houston geologist now has information that could be vitally useful to the region's builders and city planners.

[...]

Tags
earth science

More like this

Earthquake in Illinois: What's up with Wabash Valley?
Every time there's an earthquake in the Midwest, my mother emails me, just in case I want to move back home to study it. So that's how I heard about yesterday morning's earthquake in Illinois - a bit less exciting than waking up to it, but that's fine with me. This is not earthquake enough to…
Earthwide Shakedown
Is the earth falling apart? Have they started using the Hadron Colider early and not mentioned it to anyone? Are we experiencing a Global Coincidence? Have science reporters suddenly gotten interested in earthquakes? There must be some explanation for the nearly simutaneious occurrence of a…
NASA researching California fault system
I just got this massive continental plate sized press release from JPL. Below the fold. - - - - - the fold - - - - NASA Gives California's San Andreas, Other Faults a 3-D Close-up When a swarm of hundreds of small to moderate earthquakes erupted beneath California's Salton Sea in March,…
Earthquake Time Bombs by Robert Yeats
The Great San Francisco Earthquake(s) On October 8th, 1865, the "Great San Francisco Earthquake" hit south of the city of San Francisco, magnitude 6.3. On October 21st, 1868, the 'Great San Francisco Earthquake" hit near Haywards, east of the city, across the bay, magnitude 6.8. On April 18th, 1906…