Re: Experts split over quake risk

In article <11q4drvof7m5cf4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
joschapern4ospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jo Schaper) wrote:

> Man, what yahoo wrote that article?
>
>
>
> > By Eric Hand
> > ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
> > 12/14/2005

Err... Eric Hand, maybe? :-) I spotted on the same page as your story about the
dam.

> > The earth under the New Madrid Seismic Zone either isn't shifting or is
> > barely shifting at all, say three independent university analyses of global
> > positioning system stations stuck in the ground and monitored for a decade.
> >
> > So the cataclysmic shifts of past earthquakes remain unexplained, the
> > mechanism for future earthquakes still a mystery.
> >
> > The results contradict a study by scientists at the University of Memphis.
> > The study made headlines in June when it stated that two GPS stations on
> > opposite sides of the Reelfoot fault - one of several in the New Madrid
> > seismic area - had moved closer to each other at a rate that rivaled faults
> > in California. The compression could coil up the faults for future
> > earthquakes.
> >
> > One of the detractors of that study, geophysicist Eric Calais of Purdue
> > University, said their results were certainly a statistical anomaly,
> > probably an instrumental error, and, regardless, not anywhere close to the
> > motions of the San Andreas fault, which slips more than 10 times as fast as
> > the two Reelfoot fault GPS stations seem to be creeping toward each other.
> >
> > "It's not fair in a scientific paper to scare people with things like
> > that," he said.
> >
> > Michael Ellis, one of the University of Memphis authors, says his group was
> > only trying to show that the motions are consistent with the level of
> > seismic hazard that geologists have already established for New Madrid.
> >
> > A debate among the groups was published today in the journal Nature.
> >
> > In California, earthquakes are caused by the more predictable process of
> > plate tectonics. The Pacific Ocean plate grinds against the North American
> > plate along the San Andreas fault, which ruptures regularly in earthquakes.
> > But the New Madrid zone sits in the middle of the quiet, rigid North
> > American plate, about 150 miles from St. Louis.
>
> Major bs. the New Madrid is a failed rift zone, (about the only thing
> plate tectonic-y around here) and much of the displacement and movement
> is mostly vertical, not horizontal. Attempting to compare it to San
> Andreas is faulty in the extreme. Better to compare it to East Africa.
>
> >
> > Ellis' paper was the first to suggest that the plate is stretching and
> > straining near the New Madrid zone.
>
> Bullhocky. So what's with the last 100 years of New Madrid research,
> starting with Mryon Fuller, and coming up to the present? Is it as they
> say, pressed meat?
>
>
> Yet all four groups agree that the tiny motions
> > they're arguing about - as much as an eighth of an inch per year - would
> > need to be almost twice as big to build up the strain needed to unleash the
> > huge magnitude 7 or 8 earthquakes that occurred in 1811 and at regular
> > 500-year intervals for the past few thousand years.
>
> I guess 1811-12 was a bad acid trip, and never *really* happened.
>
> >
> > Either the past earthquakes weren't as big as geologists thought, the
> > earthquake process has stopped, or it's in a quiet period that could
> > suddenly start up again, Calais said.
>
> Well, duh. He obviously is unaware of the fact that 100 events (most of
> them small) happen along the rift zone. I guess Reelfoot Lake was built
> by bulldozers, too.
> >
> > Amid the uncertainty, policymakers are trying to decide how important the
> > earthquake hazard is. Last week, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt met with his
> > cabinet officials to work on earthquake response plans. He said he was
> > concerned that fewer than 41 percent of Missourians have earthquake
> > insurance.
>
> Um, our governor is very young, and his concern about equ insurance may
> indeed be concern for his buds in the insurance industry not being able
> to tap into everyone. BTW, I have eq insurance--it isn't as pricey as
> some believe. And our house has been eq-proofed, we keep spare food,
> water, fuel etc., not because we think it's gonna be big shaking anytime
> soon, but just in case. Those things will prove more useful short term
> than a piece of paper saying "I own insurance" which one can neither
> eat, drink, or use for a roof.
>
> >
> > County by county, the percentage of homeowners with earthquake insurance
> > varies wildly, and not necessarily according to how close one is to the New
> > Madrid seismic zone. In some counties near New Madrid, fewer than 50
> > percent of homeowners have it.
> Near New Madrid is the Bootheel, which is largely rural, agricultural,
> and poor. They likely don't have the spare change for the insurance, the
> infrastructure which is insurable, or (based on historic reports) any
> assurances that in case of earthquake, the public drainage system would
> withstand such ground movement, and turn Southeast Missouri back into
> "Swampeast Missouri" which it was as recently as 100 years ago.
>
>
>
> Yet in places such as Chesterfield, which is far away from
> > New Madrid and would have much lower shaking, 84 percent have insurance.
>
> People in Chesterfield live in the shadow of the Monarch levee, which
> failed in 1993, causing a couple billion dollars in damage to an upscale
> community built on gumbo flats. (The town used to be called Gumbo, in
> fact.) Since then, they've rebuilt, expanded, drove out nearly all the
> farmers, replaced them with shopping malls and corporate headquarters
> and in general set themselves up for another catastrophic drenching the
> next time the Missouri River goes major wa-ha. Because of the
> liquifaction effects of earthquakes on river valleys, Chesterfieldians
> better damn well have eq insurance, as they are much more at risk than I
> am. They need flood insurance too. Unfortunately stupidity insurance has
> not yet been invented.

Exactly how many cities in America depend upon levees to keep them safe? I can't
help feeling that if I had gone to a new big empty country, I would have built
my cities on somewhat higher ground. Everybody knows about New Orleans, but it
wasn't until Katrina that I found out about Biloxi and places in Mississippi and
Alabama too. Now you are saying there are even more? And as you say,
liquefaction is a problem which must have been compounded by the extensive
flooding. I put as many links as I could find on my Gulf Coast Blog, but I do
confess it began to look like an endless task, and I don't get it updated so
often any more, and people can follow the links to local newspapers and blogs
anyway.


> > Meanwhile, insurance companies are pulling out of the Midwest, citing the
> > great uncertainty of setting prices for unpredictable events. Last year,
> > Safeco Insurance stopped offering earthquake policies in Tennessee. This
> > year, they stopped in Missouri and Illinois.
> >
> > Even the scientists differ on whether earthquake insurance makes sense.
> >
> > Ellis, who is saying that the hazard could be as high as geologists think,
> > did not have earthquake insurance when he lived in Memphis. He was
> > frustrated by its high cost and high deductibles, which can now be as much
> > as 10 or 15 percent.
> >
> > "There's more chance that a tornado will destroy my house than an
> > earthquake," he said.
> >
> > But Calais, who is saying that the hazard might not be as great as
> > previously thought, said he would nonetheless own insurance if he lived in
> > southeastern Missouri.
> >
> > "I guess I like to live on the safe side," he said.
> >
> If Calais lived in SE Mo., (and didn't leave upon finishing school) he
> likely would be the son or grandson of sharecroppers, either tied or
> attached to the land, a blue collar worker at some small manufactory, or
> a small businessman of some sort, belonging to an evangelical Christian
> sect, who believes that 'the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away--blest
> be the name of the Lord.'
>
> Suggest he go to New Madrid, Caruthersville, or Hayti for a reality
> check.

The problem I have is that most of my maps are geological ones, and I only have
Atlas type maps of the U.S. I know where my friends live, and where geological
features are, but to find out more about places I have to use something like
Google Earth. Besides, this story was from your paper. You should write a letter
into Eric Hand and complain. I used to like complaining to my local M.P. because
she claims to be a scientist, via write to them dot com, but I must have upset
her by calling her "just a public servant" cos I got banned. Of course, I found
a way round that too, and she must hate getting emails from nemesis@xxxxxxxxxxx,
which must perplex her because it doesn't exist. One way or the other, this will
be the last time she ever gets elected as our local M.P.


Alan

http://unitedeuropeanworkersunion.blogspot.com/

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http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/

http://veloceraptor.blogspot.com/

http://www.planetarybillofrights.org/

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
.

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