All Shook Up
April 19, 2008 - 11:21am — PaulaZ
Location(s)
Earthquake
MO
All the news about yesterday's earthquake in Illinois reminded me of an encounter I had with a midwestern earthquake. One day, we dug up an earthquake.
I had just been hired to work on a project along the Castor River in southeastern Missouri. This area is known as the “Bootheel,” and a quick look at the map will show you why.
Being new to the crew, I didn’t know much about the area yet. In one of my first days on the project, I found myself sitting in the bottom of a hole about four feet deep and looking at a soil profile about six feet long. Usually, soil layers are pretty straightforward, like looking at a cut through a layer cake. They can get pretty complicated where critters or people have dug into them and moved things around. But this one had me, and my colleague, stumped. The soils layers were, well, broken. They went along pretty flat, then jumped up or down a few inches. I had never seen anything like this before.
I remember saying to my pit partner, “Gee, it looks like somebody gave this land a good shake!”
Well, sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. The project geomorphologist told us about the New Madrid earthquake. This was one of the most powerful earthquakes ever to wrack North America, and it happened in the Midwest in 1811-1812. But you don’t have to take my word for it; read some accounts from people who experienced it.
Comments
I never knew
I never heard about this earthquake. I never even knew about earthquakes in Illinois. Pretty interesting stuff. In the four years I lived in California I don't think I ever remember an earthquake. I have seen flooding and forest fires but never an earthquake.
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