Earthquake Awareness

[Team_Pink]

Someday, when that is depends on which government agency you believe, the New Madrid fault zone is going to blow. Now there has been a new fault discovered around Marianna making the danger even more real.

There are several states involved with trying to promote earthquake awareness because of the looming danger. Arkansas is having their earthquake awareness week the first week of February.

Here is a link to some geocaches related to Earthquake Awareness:

http://www.wjtv.com/gulfcoastwest/jtv/n ... -0009.html (http://www.wjtv.com/gulfcoastwest/jtv/news.apx.-content-articles-JTV-2009-01-22-0009.html)

[Woodwalker9]

That is very interesting Mike. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[topkitty98]

Very time appropriate, considering the number of small earthquakes that have been noted around odd spots in Arkansas lately.

I would like to go see this place.

[Howlingmoon]

Arkansas has already been getting earthquakes ? o.O I did not know that. Goes to show how much attention I pay to the news and such. lol

[BSA534]

I remember there was one centered in Greenbrier a while back. It woke us up and we could hear a Wal-Mart bag shaking on the bedroom floor. I said "That felt like an earthquake" and then we went back to sleep. Then the next morning we heard that there had been one.

A couple of weeks later I saw a bumper sticker in a convenience store that read, "I survived the Greenbrier Earthquake"

[idratherbehiking]

HERE (http://www.geology.ar.gov/geohazards/earthquakes.htm) is a link to a map of recent Arkansas earthquakes.

[chadbishop]

i hate to revive an old topic but i read something the other day i found interesting. for some reason i decided to start researching the new madrid fault (more on this in a second). ive always thought that it was "building up" and we would eventually explode with an earthquake like the 1812 one. on march 13th of this year though, scientists from purdue and northwestern concluded something to the contrary. they detected less than 0.2mm/year movement along the fault and concluded that the fault is likely shutting down and the tectonic strain is accumulating elsewhere. heres the source.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/0 ... tting.down (http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/03/13/new.madrid.fault.system.may.be.shutting.down)

now, the reason for me researching it. i was trying to find a physical feature caused by the fault line for an earth cache. i did alot of research on the fault and earthquakes its had, but i couldnt find or think of a physical feature caused by it. id like for this to be my first earthcache, so if anyone knows of a feature that stands out i would appreciate the help. if you want to take the idea and make an earth cache thats fine too. i just think it deserves one.

[Team_Pink]

That study is relatively new and has not been peer reviewed yet. Their whole premise is based on ground deformation. It is entirely possible that stresses can build without causing any deformation at the surface.

I hope they are right. Nobody wants to see what will happen when a worst case scenario happens on the New Madrid. Practically all of the natural gas headed for the north central US travels via pipelines through the heart of the New Madrid seismic zone. Memphis and St. Louis will be devastated and many lives lost.

In that same study the possibility of the stresses moving and building in another place was mentioned. No one understands intraplate seismic activity as of yet so it is really anyone's quess.

My point is that everyone should have a plan.

[jclaudii]

Cool Chart IBRH. I wonder if a majority of the quakes here in AR, especially in the Ozark FS area and Greenbrier area, are caves, caverns, and such collapsing? We have quite a few natural and undiscovered (or unpublished) caves and caverns that could collapse anytime and could be big enough to register.

I also think the gas drilling in the area of Greenbrier has something to do with the recent quakes. It stands to reason that if you remove pressurized gas from an area, then there is nothing holding the top and sides from taking over the space the gas was in. So thus causing the earth/rock to "cave" into the once occupied space of the gas. Just my thoughts though.

I do agree we here in AR do not pay much attention to earthquakes, we mainly focus on Tornadoes. I think everyone should have preparedness on their mind just in case any disaster hits. We have already started getting all our important papers into one box that we can toss in our vehicle. I have slowly been working on moving those important papers over to a thumbdrive so we have a digital copy as well. We have also made ourselves BOB's (Bug out Bags) with at least a couple days worth of food/water, some first aide, light/fire, change of cloths, and a simple tarp for shelter. This makes it easy to toss our BOB's and important papers box in the Jeep and High Tail (bug out) it out of our area in less than 3 minutes!

We are also working on keeping a longer term food supply at our house. We usually buy a few extra cans of soup, bags/boxes of rice, tuna, noodles, etc and stash them in our pantry. We also always buy a few extra cans of Baby formula even though we don't really need it in the next few weeks. I would say we at least have about 3weeks to 4 weeks of Food and about a week of bottled/stored water. The water we have a Well on the property,and even though it's electric, I think we could still stick a water house down in there and suck some out. We have no stored gas, besides a few gallons for the lawnmower, so that is the one area we need to build up.

Since AR is not as prepared for an earthquake, I think it will be like the 2000 ice storm. Roads/bridges will be damaged and possible closed, buildings will be down, and the response time to inspect/reopen or check for survivors is going to be WAYYYY longer than in the areas where Earthquakes are more common. This will affect our Just in Time delivery system at our grocery stores and walmart and possibly the fuel stations. Thus causing people who keep just their weeks worth of groceries to get hungry pretty fast since everyone else is stocking up as well AFTER the disaster.

Just in case you didn't know I love checking out Zombie Squad, www.zombiehunters.com (http://www.zombiehunters.com), which is a preparedness group specializing in...well...preparedness! Their mantra is is build up a good "cache" of food and goods at your Location to keep you from having to go out during a disaster or crisis which could put you and your family in danger. Then they also strive to teach/educate others on self sufficient living and ways to survive without modern convinces. They have a great first aid section that teaches people all kinds of general and specific info about wound treatment. They also have one of the best "ART" sections with some great stories about living in a Post Apocalyptic World (See Mom's Journal http://zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=35300&sid=1d74eb3ba9c27440b69d3b243872d02b)

Overall, if you prepare for Zombies to walk the earth, then you are probably prepared for almost any other disaster that could pop up. The site loves to play on the Zombie theme, but it uses the above statement to get people to think about preparedness. So Everyone, get out and make a BOB :) I wrote way too much for too early in the morning!

[OldRiverRunner]

It never hurts to be prepared for World War Z!

[chadbishop]

wow. i thought i was the only one who read max brooks' books and had bug out bags. i suggest reading cody lundins books too, especially "when all hell breaks loose". as far as the research i posted, i didnt think it was proven, just interesting. ill go ahead and fess up since it seems other folks are talking about it, but in my house we are prepared for a zombie war. so i guess earthquakes will be a pretty easy thing to take on. we might need a "postapocalyptic preparedness" section of the forums now.

i dont want the other part of my post to die though. does anyone know of any physical features of the new madrid that could be made into an earth cache. i see alot of other states that have slews of earth caches, we are the natural state. we should outdo all of them. i think we should have earthcache planning groups.

i feel the solanum kicking in. ill talk to you guys tomoo...BRAAAAAAAAAAAINSSSS

[jclaudii]

Yea perhaps this requires it's own thread, but I couldn't resist a plug for Zombie Squad! Plus they have some of the best info I think on the web regarding preparedness for any disaster.

To answer your question, you may contact someone at UALR about the trench and earthquake info. That may be a start for you at least.

[Team_Pink]

Here is a contact:

Erica Doerr
Geologist
Arkansas Geological Survey
3815 West Roosevelt Road
Little Rock, AR 72204
Direct Line: (501) 683-0126

Tell her Mike Pinkston told you to check with her.

[Geezer_Veazey]

Perhaps an oxbow lake formed when the river changed course from the earthquake. There should be before and after maps at the library, if not online.

[chadbishop]

Perhaps an oxbow lake formed when the river changed course from the earthquake. There should be before and after maps at the library, if not online.

thats a great idea. i do know the reelfoot lake in tn was formed from the 1812 earthquake. ill look into it. thanks for the idea.

[jclaudii]

I think it's Lake Chicot is the only one I can think of in AR, but it is on the Mississippi and is just natural river movement I think. Here is a link that may help you out a tad more. http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/image ... -21-02.pdf (http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/images/pdfs/education/school_booklet_1-21-02.pdf)

Do a search on the page for "quake" and you'll find that Benjamin Crowley was giving some land for his service in the 1812 war, but when he checked out the land it had "sunk" from the earthquake at that time and became part of the St. Francis FloodPlane.

Good Luck!

[Geezer_Veazey]

Here is an excerpt from a USGS paper:
Lake St. Francis, in eastern Arkansas, which was formed by subsidence, is 64 kilometers long by 1 kilometer wide. Coal and sand were ejected from fissures in the swamp land adjacent to the St. Francis River, and the water level is reported to have risen there by 8 to 9 meters.
The entire paper can be found here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1811-1812.php