ROCKS & ROLL

The last few weeks, I watched the program called Natural Disasters from Discovery channel featuring major earthquakes and asteroids. I watched the series and became interested in learning more.

I learned that New Madrid is a city in New Madrid County in Missouri. According to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, the area is famous for being the site of a series of major earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, believe to be the most powerful earthquakes recorded in the contiguous United States.

The following explanation is from the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis, Tennessee. The New Madrid fault system, or the New Madrid seismic zone, is a series of faults beneath the continental crust in a weak spot known as the Reelfoot Rift. The fault system crosses from Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky through Tennessee.

A magnitude 6.0 on the Richter Scale could happen and the losses of lives, injuries and properties due to the earthquake would destroy the entire area, St. Louis included. The Center mentioned that we can reduce the effects and there are many things can be done to protect ourselves by planning, by building better structures, and make sure all citizens are earthquake prepared. I am not sure how much prepare I could do if the earthquake happened while I was driving at 65 miles an hour on the highway and the road open up beneath me or the highway split in half.

According to Mr. Robert Kraske in his book, Asteroids - Invaders from Space, there are estimate 1,500 to 2,000 asteroids one-half mile in diameter or larger in near-Earth orbits. If Earth and one of these asteroids arrive at the same point in space, the two will collide (no kidding, were they supposed to know to stop and let the other passed?). One close call came on July 4, 1991, an asteroid nearly 1,600 feet wide, passed a mere 1.6 million miles from Earth. As a person with very little of knowledge in science, was I supposed to fear a rock spinning somewhere 1.6 millions miles away could kill me? Should I worry about the prediction by the astronomers that Earth might be in danger in 2126?

There are fancy words such as Stones from Heaven or Loose Cannonballs for the killer asteroids. On February 1, 1994, a 100-yard wide rocky asteroid exploded over the South Pacific. The force of the explosion equal to that of 110,000 tons of high explosives lit up the sky. I like to think that on that day, God sent a special greetings and fireworks to celebrate my birthday!

For now, I will try not to worry about New Madrid fault line or a mountain-size rock crashing into Earth. Until the Big One hits, let's keeping on Rock & Roll.