Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Earthquake.

Michigan.

West Michigan.

An earthquake in West Michigan? WTF?

Yup. A magnitude 4.2 earthquake, centered four miles south of Galesburg MI, which is east of Kalamazoo, and four miles down.

And. We. Missed. It.


Seismic data from Fermilab in Batavia IL. Timestamp along bottom is in CDT. via Facebook.
©2015 Fermilab (All Rights Reserved)

"The earthquake struck at 12:23 p.m. roughly 5 miles south of Galesburg at a depth of 3.7 miles beneath the ground, the USGS says."

This is not the first time this has happened to us, but we were driving to Grand Haven MI along the back roads when the earthquake "hit". Never even noticed it. Once again. We only found out when someone at Bekins mentioned the quake about an hour and a half later after we ordered a new refrigerator and stove. Of course our house shudders every now and then anyway. It's built on sand which transmits sounds and vibrations quite well and there are a few people who do Big Things moving dirt and rocks around for fun and profit. Plus people playing with explosives.

As I've mentioned before, we have a very low success rate with observing natural phenomena in West Michigan, which made the 5 April 2015 Lunar eclipse sighting so wonderful.


Capsule infographic from the United States Geological Survey via Facebook. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 USGS (All Rights Reserved)

To the people of California, Alaska and all around the Pacific Ring of Fire, I know you're laughing at a 4.2 quake. But come on, it's the second strongest earthquake recorded in Michigan ever! 4.6 in Coldwater MI on 9 August 1947 wins top honors. That was 68 years ago. 24,738 days! I'm pretty sure the 1960s earthquake that cracked the plaster along the stairs in the house I grew up in back in Medina in Western New York was stronger? Hmm, nothing listed in the Northeast above a 5 in the early 60s. Well, it was 75 year old plaster. Anyway, the point is: You can shovel snow, it's harder to shovel an earthquake or a hurricane. Why the hell do you think we live in West Michigan?

Best story on the news last night was the pastor of a small church who was giving a sermon when the quake struck -- on why it was important for them to raise money for relief in Nepal, devastated just a week ago by a powerful quake. The newspapers last week had human interest stories from the Grand Rapids immigrant and international student community about residents here concerned about finding out what happened to their families and loved ones in Nepal.


Strongest part of the quake was in a thirty mile swath. Motion of around 3cm/sec. Allendale is located at the upper left, in the middle blue LIGHT range. via MLIve.
©2015 USGS (All Rights Reserved)

A WMU Geology prof on the Channel 3 News last night reiterated that this was unusual but not common. Indeed, most Michigan earthquakes original outside of the state. A number of quakes in 1811-12 were connected to the New Madrid Fault in Missouri, which is still a ticking time bomb for the Midwest. And in the U.P., the Keweenaw had some quakes a hundred years ago that were probably collapsing copper mines below.

This particular fault lit up quite well, so it is now fairly well defined. Especially good, since this fault was unknown at noon yesterday.

But I was sure, after the recent reports from Oklahoma, that someone was going to bring up fracking.

And I was not disappointed -- less than twenty-four hours after the quake I saw the first hysterical article posted on Facebook about a possible connection to Michigan allowing high volume horizontal fracturing. Now, to be truthful -- as a scientist, I have no idea. But last I heard the fracking was only approved recently? Ah, 2010. Are any wells actually active? Or are people mistaking the old low yield salt water injection wells that have been running since like the 1930s in West Michigan? Seems there are a handful of operations since 2011-13. (Note microscopic print from the Dept. of Environmental Quality.) We'll see how this develops.


The wags got out early. The photo is stock -- the same Rebuild message was used in Melbourne and several other places. Truthfully, a few bricks fell out of a chimney near the site and we know one person in Grand Rapids who got a crack in a plaster wall. I am sure there was more damage, but we're talking small potatoes here.
©2015 Memegenerator.net (All Rights Reserved)

Despite having effectively missed the event, this is what passes for news here. Wonder if the folks arriving for Tulip Time in Holland MI were exited about all this?

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

A Question

So a student asked at the beginning of class today, "What's this incident in Pennsylvania that they keep talking about on the news?"

Now let's be fair here. The student had heard of Three Mile Island. And Chernobyl. But the talking heads on the TV, while covering Japan, keep mentioning Three Mile Island and Chernobyl like you know what they're talking about. And then there's the simple fact that while Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were bigtime events in my life, 1979 and 1986 respectively were both before nearly all of my students in both classes were born.

I noticed in passing through channels late Monday night that Rachel Maddow on MSNBC was doing a heroic job of explaining terms, putting in historical context and making sure she was interpreting what the statements about the nuclear reactor woes in Japan were and more importantly were not saying. Then had a real nuclear physicist indicate whether she'd done a good job. She had. Rachel prepares her material better than anyone on television.

So Some Background

This afternoon I cobbled up a short list of links for my students, which I'll put here. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but they do a pretty good job of aggregating information on events like this:

# Japanese Reactors Fukushima I (Units 1-4) (ongoing 2011).
# Three Mile Island (1979).
# Chernobyl (1986).
# Article on Michigan and Midwest nuclear reactors.

The most interesting quote from the last article:

In one corner, there are those like Don Williams, a “seriously pro-nuke” retired Hope College professor, who has studied the industry and advocates for more nuclear energy.

He doesn’t think what happens in Japan should have any bearing on U.S. nuclear policy.

“But it will,” he concedes.

“Those poor people over there, they planned on a 25-foot tsunami and they got a 30-foot one. What are the chances of that?” Williams said.

I spent some time in both classes talking a little bit about the ongoing situation in Japan, which is steadily deteriorating. But from halfway around the world, and not precisely my area of expertise, except in the most general Physics teaching sense, it's hard to know exactly how bad this is or how bad it will get.

It's easy to make dire pronouncements about nuclear power global or awful predictions about what might happen in Japan. Easily lost in all this, which Williams referred to above, is that they did plan for a bad earthquake -- and the ten reactors involved got through that relatively in good shape. They did plan for a tsunami -- but what hit the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Station was far greater than they planned for. And this story is far from over.

Fictional References

The China Syndrome (film) vs. The China Syndrome (fact) -- a reference to a core meltdown burning through the bottom of a containment structure and "can't stop until it reaches China". The movie came out in 1979, just 12 days before Three Mile Island.

Finally, growing up one of my favorite disaster novels was the 1975 nuclear power plant meltdown story The Prometheus Crisis by Thomas H. Scortia and Frank N. Robinson. Typical of this type of book, you have a rather contrived set of multiple circumstances -- the two authors also wrote The Glass Inferno, which was combined with The Tower to make the movie The Towering Inferno. No doubt if I read The Prometheus Crisis today, it wouldn't hold up nearly as well as I think it might. (grin)

Dr. Phil

Japan - March 2011

I've been thinking of things to write on, not so much to pile onto comments on the earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan, but as a placeholder to remind me later that this was the weekend.

However, before we get too far, I thought I'd share this video, posted by maryrobinette Mary Robinette Kowal on Facebook. It's about six minutes long and shows the tsunami waters racing into a town. Right at the beginning there's a white minivan turning the corner and racing ahead of the flood -- I don't know if they managed to get to high ground or not. Thankfully I did not notice any people in any of the other vehicles.

We like to think of ourselves as living in a modern technological age. Sure, we deal with storms and such, often treating them as inconveniences to our normally scheduled days. But the speed and power of natural events such as happened along the coast of Japan is in a whole different league. This is not Hollywood special effects wizardry in Yet Another Disaster Epic. This is real. And though six minutes isn't all that long, it's much longer than the snippets which have been endlessly played and replayed on CNN, Weather Channel and the various networks.

By the time you get to the end of this video, we are in a different territory in terms of the level of destruction and what kinds of things are floating by in a rush. There is an awesomeness and indeed a majesty of witnessing this sort of power -- especially, I'm afraid to admit, from the safety of a comfortable office half a world away.

I am sorry that unfortunately I don't have any references for this link. I don't know the town or who shot it or what will happen to these people. But I am grateful that this person did take the time and risk to document this, without commentary, for us to see.

Dr. Phil