--- In [email protected], Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > on 4/3/05 10:12 PM, Bob Brigante at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > Interesting article on the big 1811 quake that shook up the folks > > around the Mississippi: > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/books/review/03GENZING.html? > >
> So do geologists feel that we might have another quake any time soon? I > heard that this one made church bells in Boston ring. I wonder what it would > do to Fairfield, or St. Louis, which isn't built to earthquake code. ********* I doubt if scientists know whether there is going to be a New Madrid fault quake soon. Thie official line is that there is such-and-such a probability of a quake happening now, but that's based on the historical record, and knowledge of all the actual factors (not merely based on historical inference) involved in a quake are just not available: "A damaging earthquake in this area (6.0 or greater) occurs about every 80 years (the last one in 1895). There is a 50% chance of such a quake by the year 2000. The results would be serious damage to schools and masonry buildings from Memphis to St. Louis. A major earthquake in this area (7.5 or greater) happens every 200- 300 years (the last one in 1812). There is a 10% chance of such a disaster by the year 2000 and a 25% chance by 2040. A New Madrid Fault rupture this size would be felt throughout half the United States and damage expected in 20 states or more. Missouri alone could anticipate losses of at least $6 billion from such an event." http://www2.semo.edu/ces/CES2.HTML A similar situation is trying to predict when the earth's magnetic pole will flip -- it has not done so for 780,000 years, yet the average is 250K years, so statistically, a flip (like the New Madrid quake, possibly?) is overdue, but that's only based on history, not the actual dynamics of the earth, which are not easy to discern for either quakes or magnetic flips. Scientists do not have enough info, or enough computing power, according to the following Scientific American article, to predict a magnetic flip even if they had more info from the earth's interior. http://tinyurl.com/4gypy To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
