23 April 2008
Here’s one for Julian!
Posted by Jessica Ball
The USGS has released updated versions of their National Seismic Hazard Maps.
(Image from the 2008 USGS Fact Sheet)
(Image from the 2008 USGS Fact Sheet)
And look! A green spot over western New York! That’s way better than being in the blue. (Not as exciting as sitting on a subduction zone capable of generating M9+ earthquakes, but I suppose I can’t have everything.)
Update: While poking around the USGS Urban Hazard Maps, I found this one of Seattle. All I can say is, wow. What did they build UW on, a giant sandbox? That wouldn’t stop me wanting to go there later, but if they have a big earthquake and Johnson Hall collapses on me, it would be pretty hard to finish a Ph.D.
Jessica Ball is a graduate student in the Department of Geology at State University of New York at Buffalo, where she is learning how to safely and productively play with very hot rocks. Her PhD research focuses on the interaction of water and lava domes, and involves both field investigations and modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from life as a grad student to geoscience outreach to (of course!) her field and lab work in volcanology.
Julian said on 23 April 2008
I live in a red spot! Woohoo!(?)(Actually, considering I live close to the reddest red spot on those very recent rupture probability maps for California, probably not woohoo…)I bet the people in Illinois who just felt last week’s 5.2 and otherwise know nothing about earthquakes are going to have a cow over that red blob. I read some news coverage on the two aftershocks that followed the 5.2, and the media and people interviewed were all, “OMG LOTTA EARTHQUAEKS GONNA BE TEH BIG ONE NEXT RUN AND HIIIIDE!” The word “aftershock” was not in this article, and “New Madrid Seismic Zone” certainly wasn’t mentioned. To me, this says places other than the West Coast need earthquake awareness talks/materials, too.
Jessica Ball (AKA Tuff Cookie) said on 23 April 2008
Ouch. I am firmly of the opinion that anyone who lives in the Midwest should be made to sit down and watch the OLD Planet Earth TV series, the one made in the 80s where the seismologists talk extensively about the New Madrid Seismic Zone and say that they’re just waiting for something big to happen. (And that was in the 80s. Plus, watching them point at the old green-on-black computer screens is pretty fun.)
Maria said on 23 April 2008
My father is a building inspector, and apparently his whole office was very surprised when they realized that parts of Iowa aren’t actually in the lowest level of earthquake hazard.