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In Great Falls, about once a month we'd get up and some of the cabinet doors would be open and pictures askew (great word that), but no one had felt anything. Didn't get that in Bozeman, but every so often we'd hear BANG and the ground would jump sortof like when you go down a little jog and miss a step (like in a dream).
Then there was the day of the big Idaho quake -- 1980ish, I forget exactly -- and reports were the top floor of MSU's highrise dorms swayed by around 15 feet. (Those buildings are on deep pilings -- because the ground there really isn't sufficiently solid for a multi-story building. Otherwise they might have gone over.) I heard it was very "entertaining" for the kids still at home in their dorm that day!! Out in my trailer at Belgrade, I slept through it and didn't feel a thing!
My dogs all slept through the Northridge quake!!! and when I went outside after it was over (to collect water out of the system into buckets, cuz that place didn't have a proper storage tank, and the power was out and who knew when it would be back on) the ones that could be arsed to get up all looked at me like "whatever are you doing up at 4am??!"
Yellowstone is setting on top of a Super Volcano that is approximately 350 miles across. There are several earthquakes a day in Yellowstone and the surrounding area. So yeah, smaller plates shift periodically around Yellowstone. They are called Triggered Quakes. A good quake in Yellowstone will trigger another elswhere.
Thanks for this info. I don't know if I knew this.....I might have seen it on a chart in a visitors center when I was a kid.....I've been there twice, but not for many years...(come to think of it, decades, actually)....always wanted to take our girl there and now, it seems like it might eventually be a possiblity.....(maybe when she is on a break at UM)... I just remember all those stinky, hot, colorful sulfur springs or whatever they are called.....smell like rotten eggs....
I guess it would suffice to say that where there are mountains, there is a dormant (or not so dormant, as in Mammoth), volcano. (Okay, okay, who died and made me head geologist today? )
There have been some attempts to correlate that, but so far it appears it's sheer chance -- at best they might hear something in the ground (if they're sleeping directly on it and conditions are right), but they have no idea what a quake IS, and big quakes that actually kill animals are not common enough anywhere to ingrain fear in relatively short-lived critters ... so the truth is that's just a happy myth. And when all my dogs and cats (at the time I had about 35 dogs and 4 house cats, plus some feral cats that lived under the trailer) sleep through it and can't even be bothered to get up to investigate afterward... not to mention all the livestock (about 30 horses and donkeys, plus a bunch of chickens, sheep, pigs, and misc. critters) in the adjacent barn and pasture and pens, NONE of whom were up or moving around when I went outside.... well, that's one durn poor quake-alarm system
I guess it would suffice to say that where there are mountains, there is a dormant (or not so dormant, as in Mammoth), volcano. (Okay, okay, who died and made me head geologist today? )
Haha, now I have this picture of a volcano made from a geologist's head
There can be dormant/future volcanos (or even supervolcanos) without mountains, too (Hawaii didn't start as mountainous!) That's how central Oregon has been described -- the ground there has swelled upward on average about 18 inches since they've been measuring it (up to 3 feet in some areas), and there's some thought that since the crust is thin there, it might eventually blow. Ground uplift in Oregon Cascades is tipoff to rising magma The area described is actually east of the Cascades, and the weakest spot, per a map I've seen but don't find offhand, is out in the middle of the lumpy desert. Another teaser article: Oregon is bulging.(volcanic eruptions due)(Brief Article) - Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication | Encyclopedia.com and another short one: Tomorrow’s Trends » Volcano popping up in Oregon (http://www.tomorrowstrends.com/2005/09/volcano-popping-up-in-oregon.html - broken link)
and another Scientists Find Growing Land Bulge in Oregon - Science News - redOrbit
tho this one is weak on the map concept; Bend OR (funny name when the ground is "bending"!) is more like the western edge of the central Oregon flats, not "western" OR.
But yeah, wherever you have mountains, the earth's crust underwent some sort of violent upheaval and likely will do so again, whether it's volcano or earthquake or tectonic plate crashes or whatever is this week's theory of mangled rocks piled very high a long time ago Still, nothing today even comes close to the upheavals of the distant past, that actually built those mountains. Aren't you glad humans came along after the planet outgrew the major temper tantrums?
Last edited by Reziac; 04-05-2010 at 02:35 PM..
Reason: proofread carefully to see if you any words out
I hope everyone is ok in the earthquake area. I was and still am living in Homestead, FL when Hurricane Andrew hit. I think it would be much less stressful to live where earthquakes are more likely then here. There is nothing worse than the shear dread of watching a big storm coming (for days) in your direction. Sure you can prepare, but still, the stress is incredible! In 2005, we had 4 storms hit this area....
I need some help, suggestions. It has been forever since I've taken a real vacation...forever. Most of my trips have been in association with conferences I attend - Pasadena, Denver, Atlanta, etc. I am single and it may be that I would be traveling alone. I am thinking of visiting Kansas (the Flint Hills) or Nebraska - lots of nature stuff to see. It would be during the summer - July or August, probably. I am not necessarily keen on driving in mountains...but open to ideas and any suggestions. Neighbors, do you have some ideas?
Rickers ... Best of luck to your wife.. And after her weight loss and the healthy moves you guys are trying to make .. man, she's one girl who deserves to catch a break.. Hope you don't mind if I mention her name in a prayer or two.. If you get into " Hootersville", stop by Sam Druckers general store and tell him tiberius says hey.. And, since you're looking for some income property, I hear there may be a small hotel over in Petticoat Junction available... the Shady Rest, I believe its called.. And if you can round up three pretty local girls to work there, well, I'll come rent a room there myself.. May even stay there permanent.. And if a guy named Haney, comes by and tries to sell you anything, DON'T TRUST HIM..
In fact, you might wanna take a real close look and be sure it ain't ALREADY yours to begin with..
Good luck to you and your wife .. in everything you got goin on..
Reziac .. and Wurzig .... I believe the animals ARE aware of impending earthquakes.. The time frame between awareness and reaction may be related to the strength of the impending quake and their nearness to the epicenter.. Admittedly, I have no empiricle evidence, but I believe its either a magnetic interuption, or possible either a very low or very high frequency precursor to the event..
Leastwise, that's the talk around the junction.. and the local extension agent, Hank Kimball agrees with me..... or at least I THINK he does. He kind of went off on a couple tangents while we were talking and then left.. Unusual guy, but nice enough.. but seems to fit right in at Hooterville.. He did say, though, that if I wanted to really discuss the subject, I should look up a local guy named Arnold Ziffel.. I might just do that..
If ANYONE's has any interest in tv shows from the 1940's thu the 2000's, this is a great site for the casts.. some interesting facts.. and even the words to the theme songs.. Its a great site.. Its a great addition to anyone's favorites list on their computer.. ( it even has the words to the song whistled at the opening of the andy griffith show ) ..... One quick tidbit ... did you know Eddie Albert, from Green Acres, was a trapeze artist before he became an actor.. ( I know, I know ... I need a life ... haha )
If this were Hee Haw, it would go something like this .....
" HEY JIMJ, WHAT'S FOR DINNER..."
Fresh fried catfish, fried chicken,smotherd pork chops,meat loaf, greens (collard etc), fried okra,hush puppies, 2 types of cornbread (Ho cake and muffins) and my new favorite FRIED PIES! They also had black eyed peas, white beans with fat back and mac&cheese and I believe fried green tomato and fried pickle chips. .. (no deep fried thick sliced bacon ?? .. it's got essential nutrients )
" YUUUUUUUUUUMMM YUM "
I love everything on the list .. except okra .. Never got a taste for it..
If this were Hee Haw, it would go something like this .....
" HEY JIMJ, WHAT'S FOR DINNER..."
Fresh fried catfish, fried chicken,smotherd pork chops,meat loaf, greens (collard etc), fried okra,hush puppies, 2 types of cornbread (Ho cake and muffins) and my new favorite FRIED PIES! They also had black eyed peas, white beans with fat back and mac&cheese and I believe fried green tomato and fried pickle chips. .. (no deep fried thick sliced bacon ?? .. it's got essential nutrients )
" YUUUUUUUUUUMMM YUM "
I love everything on the list .. except okra .. Never got a taste for it..
Reziac .. and Wurzig .... I believe the animals ARE aware of impending earthquakes.. The time frame between awareness and reaction may be related to the strength of the impending quake and their nearness to the epicenter.. Admittedly, I have no empiricle evidence, but I believe its either a magnetic interuption, or possible either a very low or very high frequency precursor to the event..
Humans are animals too and there's nothing magical about other species.
I was about 10 miles from the epicenter of the 1994 Northridge mag ~6.9 (measurements varied from 6.7 to 7.1 depending on who measured it) quake, which was considered one of the strongest ever in urban North America for ground acceleration (in other words, it yanked good and hard). Yet between my place and right next door, around 100 animals of a dozen disparate species had absolutely NO inkling. This quake (http://www.wvdhsem.gov/WV_Disaster_Library/Library/Earthquake/PredctLA.htm - broken link) took out huge chunks of freeway bridges (one between me and the epicenter lost an entire major bridge (http://www.wvdhsem.gov/WV_Disaster_Library/Library/Earthquake/PredctLA_files/image006.jpg - broken link) -- that's the truck route down below) and flattened a few large buildings. (Not so many as it might, since one of the few smart things CA has done is require earthquake retrofitting on all public buildings. They hadn't gotten to all the freeways yet, tho, plus they found some of the theories about quake-proofing didn't stand up to reality.)
Friends over in the Riverside area complained that their dogs didn't wake them when they had that whopping big quake a few years later, either (the one that made a furrow in the ground about 20 feet wide and deep).
As to what animals can hear, this is directly related to the size of the cochlea. In crude terms, very small critters can mainly hear shorter wavelengths (high frequency = higher pitched sounds) and very large ones hear better in the long wavelengths (lower ranges), because that's the size that matches, thus stimulates their respective cochlea. Humans are about in the lower-middle as mammalian range goes, and primates in general probably have the best practical range of any genus -- best suited to high awareness of one's environment across the board. -- Dogs have smaller heads and smaller inner ear structures, so hear a slightly higher range than humans (hence the famous 'silent whistles' -- which generally don't work well on large dogs because they can't hear them either!) And have you ever noticed that mice generally don't hear you speaking even when you're right in front of them??
But the biggest thing is -- what advantage would there be in being able to predict earthquakes? they're not common enough, nor do they kill critters that don't live in buildings (caves generally don't collapse), so there's absolutely no evolutionary or survival advantage to pre-awareness. Only human fear of the unknown leads us to the wishful thinking that animals can give us warning that we can't sense for ourselves.
What Wikipedia's article doesn't say about Officer Clarence Wayne Dean: this should have been a Darwin award. The freeway overpass fell during the quake at 4.31AM and crews were already out there and had closed the road by the time he went to work at 6AM. They tried to stop him but he just waved back and kept on going -- over the end of the now-absent bridge some 40 or so feet up.
Wish I had pics of the old high bridge, which soared over the rest of the interchange and was beautiful to behold (one of those mathematically perfect curves one never tires of viewing). It survived the quake with minimal damage, but was demolished when the interchange was rebuilt.
What was the question again?
Last edited by Reziac; 04-05-2010 at 07:18 PM..
Reason: shaky writing ;)
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Out in my trailer at Belgrade, I slept through it and didn't feel a thing!
Still, nothing today even comes close to the upheavals of the distant past, that actually built those mountains. Aren't you glad humans came along after the planet outgrew the major temper tantrums? 
Room for one more in Hooterville? ...
.. (no deep fried thick sliced bacon ?? .. it's got essential nutrients )
.. Never got a taste for it.. 
