HAARP earthquakes in Alabama--News Story
Neon4567
AP news article from the 5/25/97 edition of The Huntsville Times
Three Quakes Hit State in May
CHATOM (AP)--Has Alabama suddenly moved next door to California? One
might think so with three earthquakes -- albeit minor ones -- reported in
Alabama this month.
The latest occurred early Thursday morning in Washington County,
said Richard Williams, an associate professor at the University of
Tennessee's Department of Geological Sciences.
No damage was reported in any of the May quakes, which ranged from
1.7 to 3.1 on the Richter scale. It's unusual for Alabama to have three
earthquakes so close together and even more unusual that two hit the
southwestern portion of the state -- the one Thursday and one on May 4 in
nearby Escambia County, Williams said.
Before this month, there had been only one other earthquake
reported in that area of southwestern Alabama since it was settled by the
Europeans hundreds of years ago, Williams said.
"They tend to be in the northern part of the state and they tend
to be small," he said.
But the increase shouldn't be cause for alarm, Williams said. "I
don't think there is anything to support imminent danger or that this is
an indication of an increase in seismic activity," Williams said. "It's
not like Mobile is going to fall into the Gulf of Mexico."
Preliminary estimates from seismic monitoring stations show the
earthquake at 12:34 a.m. Thursday in eastern Washington County measured
2.7 on the Richter Scale, Williams said. The earthquake on May 4 in
Escambia County registered 3.1 on the Richter scale, he said.
Another one measuring 1.7 on the Richter scale occurred in
Lauderdale County about nine miles northwest of Florence at 9:32 p.m. May
18, Williams said.
None of the Alabama quakes caused any damage.
One point on the Richter scale means the earth is shaking at a
factor 10 times greater than a full point on the scale below it, Williams
said. So the 6.9 earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay area in
1989, killing 62 people, would be about 10,000 times greater than the two
quakes reported in southwestern Alabama this month, Williams said.
Washington County Sheriff's Department officials said they got no
calls about Thursday's quake.
Escambia County Sheriff's Maj. Mike Murphy said the Sheriff's
office did get several calls from worried residents when the May 4 quake
shook the central part of the county.
While small earthquakes aren't unusual in Alabama, Williams said
he doesn't remember a month when Alabama has had as many.
Williams monitors 18 seismographic stations, including two in
Alabama, that cover Alabama, eastern Tennessee and parts of Kentucky and
Georgia.
End of AP article
------------------------------------
Nick Passino
Alabama, TN, MS, & AR are all one one of the largest fault-lines in the
US.
Earthquakes are pretty common, and have been for thousands of years.
Many have been reported over the last 200 years, all of which were low
magnitued (thank goodness for the shock absorbing qualities of limestome
(which is what the fault mostly lies on).
However, geologically, this area has had some of the largest quakes in
earth's history (here do you thing the mountains and valleys came from?)
Quakes were happening before HAARP, and will continue long after... w/
or without HAARP.
--
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Gary Heston
In article <338A86...@garply.com>,
Nick Passino <pas...@garply.com> wrote:
>Alabama, TN, MS, & AR are all one one of the largest fault-lines in the
>US.
You must be referring to the New Madrid fault.
>Earthquakes are pretty common, and have been for thousands of years.
Since the planet formed--billions of years.
>Many have been reported over the last 200 years, all of which were low
>magnitued (thank goodness for the shock absorbing qualities of limestome
>(which is what the fault mostly lies on).
No, the famous New Madrid quakes were within 200 years--1811 and 1812,
or close to that.
>However, geologically, this area has had some of the largest quakes in
>earth's history (here do you thing the mountains and valleys came from?)
Yeah, 8.4 Richter is powerful. However, the quakes haven't created any
mountains or valleys (one of them did create Reelfoot Lake, though).
The mountains and valleys are from tectonic plate collision, as various
pieces of the earths' crust push against each other. (Where they pull
apart, we generally find oceans.) These collisions are also the source
of the earthquakes, as the plate edges rub against each other--seems that
they stick a bit, and the slippage is what we feel.
>Quakes were happening before HAARP, and will continue long after... w/
>or without HAARP.
Anybody who thinks the motion of the earths' crust can be affected by
the actions of mere humans is a fool. Maybe if half the stockpile of
thermonuclear bombs were planted along a fault (I nominate the San
Andreas fault as a test area!) and detonated, we might change the
motion of a plate by a few centimeters per year. Getting them deep
enough (say, 10 miles) to make a real difference would be difficult,
though--otherwise, we'd just get a new ditch that didn't need lighting
at night.
Compared to 20 miles of rock, we're pretty insignificant.
Gary
--
Gary Heston ghe...@ro.com
Hestons' First Law: I qualify virtually everything I say.
spamfodder: root@localhost bin@localhost pres...@whitehouse.gov
sync@localhost daemon@localhost lp@localhost mail@localhost news@localhost
Dan Harper
In article <5meodf$t...@sh1.ro.com>, ghe...@sh1.ro.com says...
<snip>
>Anybody who thinks the motion of the earths' crust can be affected by
>the actions of mere humans is a fool. Maybe if half the stockpile of
>thermonuclear bombs were planted along a fault (I nominate the San
>Andreas fault as a test area!) and detonated, we might change the
>motion of a plate by a few centimeters per year. Getting them deep
>enough (say, 10 miles) to make a real difference would be difficult,
>though--otherwise, we'd just get a new ditch that didn't need lighting
>at night.
Ha, that's what you think. I say a documentary where this
guy named Lex Luther almost turned Arizona into beach front
property. And he'd have done it too had that meddling Clark Kent
not made time run backwards. I saw this all on television so
it's got to be true.
>Compared to 20 miles of rock, we're pretty insignificant.
Gary, say it ain't so.
Dan Harper
Hugh Messenger
Gary Heston <ghe...@sh1.ro.com> wrote in article
<5meodf$t...@sh1.ro.com>...
> In article <338A86...@garply.com>,
> Nick Passino <pas...@garply.com> wrote:
> >However, geologically, this area has had some of the largest quakes in
> >earth's history (here do you thing the mountains and valleys came from?)
>
> Yeah, 8.4 Richter is powerful. However, the quakes haven't created any
> mountains or valleys (one of them did create Reelfoot Lake, though).
> The mountains and valleys are from tectonic plate collision
Duh!!! Nik wasn't saying that the 'quakes directly cause the geological
features. He is assuming some powers of deduction on the part of the
readership, which would link earthquakes with tectonic activity.
Trust me on this one. I know Nik very well (he's my brother in law) and
can assure you that if his brains were made of chocolate, he *would* have
enough to fill an M&M. Don't let his rather severe dyslexia cloud your
judgement of his intellect.
> Gary
-- hugh
Gary Heston
In article <01bc6aaa$f0561850$1ba08781@cerebus>,
Hugh Messenger <hmes...@ingr.com> wrote:
>Gary Heston <ghe...@sh1.ro.com> wrote in article
><5meodf$t...@sh1.ro.com>...
>> In article <338A86...@garply.com>,
>> Nick Passino <pas...@garply.com> wrote:
>> >However, geologically, this area has had some of the largest quakes in
>> >earth's history (here do you thing the mountains and valleys came from?)
>> Yeah, 8.4 Richter is powerful. However, the quakes haven't created any
>> mountains or valleys (one of them did create Reelfoot Lake, though).
>> The mountains and valleys are from tectonic plate collision
>Duh!!! Nik wasn't saying that the 'quakes directly cause the geological
>features. He is assuming some powers of deduction on the part of the
>readership, which would link earthquakes with tectonic activity.
Strange; it looked to me that he was saying precisely that mountains
and valleys were the result of earthquakes. He didn't mention anything
about plate tectonics causing them, or anything to imply that the
geological features came from the same cause as earthquakes.
>Trust me on this one. I know Nik very well (he's my brother in law) and
>can assure you that if his brains were made of chocolate, he *would* have
>enough to fill an M&M. Don't let his rather severe dyslexia cloud your
>judgement of his intellect.
I didn't really notice the misspellings, and they don't in any way
affect the impression given by his article. Besides, he was way off
on a couple of other things (earthquakes happening for "a few thousand
years", no big ones locally for "over 200 years"). If he's dyslexic,
he's less so than most of the college freshmen I've seen on the net.
With all due respect, it doesn't take much to fill an M&M. At least he
did know that nearby quakes were some of the strongest ever recorded.
(One of the New Madrid quakes caused church bells to ring in *BOSTON*!)
Larry
If you're interested in the New Madrid fault zone you can read all about
it on a page I maintain on the subject at:
http://hsv.com/genlintr/newmadrd/index.htm
--larry