Submitted by Steve on Fri, 07/26/2013 - 08:33
Most folks visit Lake Tahoe to do
some skiing in the winter, to partake of fresh mountain air in the summer, or to
see a show and drop a few bucks at the casinos on the Nevada side in any
season.
Likely, most Tahoe visitors
aren’t aware that the Lake itself hides a big secret. To discover what that is
however, we need to drain the thing --
but don’t worry, we’ll fill it back up before we leave.
Submitted by Steve on Mon, 06/24/2013 - 12:03
Did you know that six
million years ago the entire Mediterranean Sea nearly dried up?
“Big Stuff”
like that is always hard to imagine, even for an earth scientist. I’ve
seen dry rivers, dry lakes, and maybe a dry reservoir, but how can a whole sea 4000
meters deep and a couple 1000 km long vanish?
Submitted by Steve on Tue, 05/28/2013 - 09:22
Are
you familiar with the story of Exodus? About 4000 years ago, Moses led the
Hebrew people out of Egypt. They
were however, closely pursued by Pharaoh’s chariots. The story states that some
relative motion of water and land delayed or destroyed the Egyptian forces and
allowed the Hebrews to escape.
We’ve
all seen the Hollywood telling of this event in the “Ten Commandments”, where
Charlton Heston splits the Red Sea for a while, then zips it back up over the
tailing troops.
Submitted by Steve on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 09:43
Earlier we learned half of the
Acqua Alta story in terms of favorable tides. The second half of the lesson involves
resonance.
Thumbnail Tutorial Continued:
(2) Resonance: I discussed
resonance previously here under the title “Seismic Slosh”...
http://www.openhazards.com/blogs/steve/seismic-slosh-swimming-pools-and-...
In that example, the resonance
was in reservoirs and the cause was seismic shaking.
Submitted by Steve on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 10:46
Have you ever visited Venice
Italy? From a geophysical perspective (Is there any other?), Venice has a
curious attribute. Certain times of the year the city endures Acqua Alta – high water- when the sea
rises up and floods the lowest areas of town. City workers dutifully unpack and
set up wooden walkways so folks can get about the place without wet feet.
Cafe owners construct temporary platforms in front of their shops tempting tourists to partake coffee and biscotti whilst high and dry. In a few days the flood
Submitted by Steve on Mon, 03/18/2013 - 12:24
Not likely that you’ve ever
thought much about Gulf of Mexico tsunami. Seeing that most tsunami birth from
large earthquakes, and that the Gulf hosts only smallish ones, your lack of
concern is justified. Still, things other than quakes cause tsunami --
submarine landslides for one.
Submitted by Steve on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 11:26
Have you read about that meteor
that blew up over Russia a few days ago? Amazing. A rock
from space hasn’t caused serious damage and human injury since --- I don’t know -- the days of Christopher
Columbus. True, a similar but bigger meteor exploded over Siberia in 1908, but
that area was virtually uninhabited.
Submitted by Steve on Tue, 02/05/2013 - 11:20
If you’ve been reading John’s
blog, you know that he is forecasting a large earthquake near Japan “sometime
soon”.
Have you heard of the term
‘card counting’? Strategists
employ the technique to predict the outcome of the casino game “21”. Well, John
is basically ‘quake counting’.
All around the world, earthquake
statistics follow a fairly universal pattern.
(A)
If in a given region over a given period of time you have experienced a certain
number of magnitude 5 quakes, then
you’d expect one of magnitude 6.
Submitted by Steve on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 11:02
I read that Hurricane Sandy
inflicted 50 billion dollars of property damage. I don’t know what fraction of
the 50 billion was purely wind-sourced versus the fraction caused by storm surge. Certainly,
the most graphic pictures of the damage in my mind are the homes tossed helter-skelter
by the latter. A close second are images of businesses and houses sitting 6 or
8 feet deep in muddy water.
Submitted by Steve on Tue, 01/08/2013 - 09:06
Many of my blogs involve natural disasters either
hypothetical or long past. In a workaday world, it’s understandable for one to
be blasé about such things. Sure, ‘what if’ events are possible, but why care?
To counterbalance this tendency, I like to highlight
cases where
‘What if’ became ‘Just did’
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