🏛️ The Hunter-Dawson Home: Staff and neighbors share unsettling stories of strange activity inside this historic house. 👻🕯️

https://hauntedlineage.com/directory/the-hunter-dawson-home/

#TheHunterSpirits #MuseumGhost #Paranormal #Missouri #NewMadrid 🏚️

Folks in #StLouis and beyond interested in the #history of the #NewMadrid Fault?

The University of Chicago Press is right now offering a FREE e-book of _The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes_ by Prof. Conevery Bolton Valencius.

For a limited time! Free knowledge! About #earthquakes! "Obscenely interesting" according to the _Chicago Reader_!

https://press.uchicago.edu/books/freeEbook.html

#histodons #HistSci

Today in Labor History December 16, 1811: The first two in a series of 4 severe earthquakes happened in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri. The quakes ranged from 7.2-8.4 in magnitude and lasted up to 12 minutes. Because the area was sparsely populated at the time, it is thought that there were few deaths. However, the temblors were so powerful, they could be felt in an area of 50,000 square miles. (The 1906 San Francisco quake (8.1) was only felt in an area of 6,200 square miles). The quake created standing waves that made a portion of the Mississippi river look as if it had changed course. The quakes also supposedly caused the Liberty Bell to clang in Philadelphia and windows to rattle in Washington, D.C. The New Madrid fault is a 150-mile long, intraplate fault (source of quakes within, rather than the usual between, faults) that threatens parts of seven American states: Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and to a lesser extent Mississippi and Indiana.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #newmadrid #mississippi #earthquake

Some of the biggest earthquakes since Europeans arrived in what is now the US didn't happen in California or Alaska. They occurred in 1812 and 1813 near New Madrid, Missouri, and some of the shocks were felt as far away as the East Coast. Its just a matter of time until another quake hits this fault zone, and the five-state region that will be affected is woefully unprepared.

#earthquakes #paleoseismology #NewMadrid #USA #Midwest #DisasterPreparation

https://undark.org/2024/07/15/enigmatic-earthquake-hotspot-america-heartland/

Eclipse Anxiety 2024

A portion of the US population is getting nervous due to doomsayers spouting frightening rumors about the coming eclipse on April 8. Misinformation and bogus claims are rampant, particularly with the religious-minded, who regularly use world events to scare people back into the fold.

It’s as if we never had a solar eclipse before in the world!

Even though it sometimes feels like we’re regressing, we are in the 21st century. Eclipses have happened repeated, around the world, in the past century. They are predictable and explainable. We can factually document that catastrophes do not accompany them. Yet, here we are… with too many in the audience expecting some cataclysm in the wake of the moon shadow.

The reasons for this are complex and social. Most people still don’t understand nature and they succumb to social pressure to be fearful. Things that sound sciencey are convincing, whereas actual science gets ignored.

An eclipse occurred and nothing happened

A solar eclipse is when the moon passes in a specific alignment between the earth and the sun so that the sun’s light is blocked out for a short while. The shadow moves across the earth’s surface because the earth is turning and the moon is moving. There is nothing particularly dangerous about this condition (unless you aren’t expecting it).

The last solar eclipse in the US occurred on Aug 21, 2017. Self-styled prophet and Nostradamus superfan, John Hogue, self-published a book around that time suggesting that there would be great upheavals as totality passed over two seismic zones – the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) and the Cascadia zone in the northwest. That didn’t happen. To hedge his bets, in case no earthquakes occurred, he also suggested the event was also an omen of bad times to come. We didn’t need an eclipse to signal that since in 2017 more than half the nation were already well aware of suffering through “interesting times”. No psychic powers were needed. I don’t think it’s reasonable to link the eclipse to the pandemic and wars, etc., years later, but being reasonable isn’t cool these days.

A solar eclipse in Hong Kong in July 2009 generated a rumor that a tsunami would occur. People were warned people to stay away from beaches.  Again, nothing happened.

These ideas about catastrophes related to eclipses didn’t die even though none of the predictions ever came true.

The buildup

Hullabaloo around the April 8 event is getting louder as we get closer. At first we heard of cities and states in the path of totality declaring states of emergency so extra funds could be used for deploying responders. This is not because of the potential for natural catastrophe but for the possibility for a human disaster. Visitors who want to view the event will be heading into areas that can’t handle the volume. Officials guessed that overcrowding, traffic, potential violent incidents, injuries, and stresses on utilities and other necessary services might be a concern. So they are preparing.

There are rumors of power cuts or outages during the eclipse. This is from a rumor that solar cells will suddenly stop producing during the darkening. I’m always amazed that people think the smart people who run complex systems haven’t thought of this.

From the NY Times:

“I don’t think anything is as predictable as an eclipse,” said Pedro Pizarro, president and chief of executive of Edison International, a California power company, and the chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade organization. “You can prepare.”

No one will lose power.

There are so many superstitions about eclipses – really dumb ones persist, such as the idea that it’s dangerous to be out during the event, particularly for pregnant women. It’s true that animals do act strange because they get confused about the sudden night fall but, again, there is nothing dangerous about it.

Storms are unrelated to the eclipse

The temporary diminishment of solar radiation will cause darkness, a drop in temperature and maybe small changes in wind speed and direction because of the reduction in convection. The cooling only happens for a few minutes. There is no connection to thunderstorms. A misappropriated weather forecast on March 15 in Orlando had some people thinking that the eclipse would generate a giant storm front. This BS hype is par for the course on Reddit.

Earthquakes are unrelated to the eclipse

The connection between eclipses and earthquakes goes back to the Bible. Even though many places around the world have experienced total eclipses and weren’t leveled by a massive quake, the unfounded connection persists. Eclipses and earthquakes have long been viewed as portents from God or “gods”. This wacky idea still hangs on in modern times even though we know they are not arbitrary events – they have a natural cause. The doomsday hype about earthquakes appeared at the time of the 2017 US solar eclipse.

Some religious leaders, who think themselves very special in that they can interpret the Bible and strike fear into their followers, saying that a large quake could occur that would cause massive damage. They encourage people to be prepared. Being prepared for a quake is not unreasonable. But suggesting that a large quake may occur during this time is dangerous and irresponsible. In particular, Tennessee evangelist Perry Stone uses “information” he just learned about the NMSZ (like, yesterday) to convince listeners that Jesus might have been talking specifically about 2024 in the Bible verse that connects earthquakes (in various places) to famine, pestilence and signs from heaven. The sign from heaven is the eclipse, he says. From his videos, Stone Ministries specializes in scaring people with nonsense claims about End Times and evil. This interpretation is a stretch. We are asked to believe that a predicted solar eclipse that occurs in a short time span over the US will herald a global catastrophe. Considering the track record of religious prophecies, I’m going to play the odds and say, “Nah”.

The path of totality does, again, pass over the centrally-located NMSZ along the Mississippi in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Kentucky, (and the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone to the northeast) however, this means nothing. The NMSZ is still poorly understood. The large earthquakes it generated in 1811-12 would be devastating if they occurred today. Many people still assume that the next “Big One” could occur in the next century. This is unlikely, though small quakes are frequent. Current research even suggests the fault system may be shutting down, not “overdue” for another large release.

The moon passing in front of the sun has no bearing on tectonic plates (or volcanic eruptions). Yet, most people know that the phase of the moon affects the earth’s ocean tides. The extra gravitational effects from a new or full moon phase on the entire planet is slight, but we see it in the oceans, which are unbounded and slosh around.

The exerted force on the crust is negligible, except for the small possibility that a large fault already set to rupture gets broken by that little extra push. The data that suggests this may be the case is not fully accepted by seismologists and, regardless, has no practical use in seismic hazards prediction. These small changes associated with tidal stresses on the earth have not convinced scientists that we should worry more about earthquakes every two weeks in line with moon phases. Yet, many crackpots still proclaim that earth tides can predict quakes. They see the celestial bodies in alignment and assume the gravitational pull is increased, but it’s not. The same misapplied ideas may also be leading to those same wind bags spouting about tsunamis or large tidal effects. None of it shakes out.

Could a solar eclipse cause an earthquake?

There are many large earthquakes around the world every year. And there are several lunar and solar eclipses every century. The odds that events will sometimes coincide is inevitable. But they are not caused by each other. If a quake occurred in the US during this eclipse, the chances are that the quake would be small, because there are dozens of small quakes that occur every day. And, if that were to happen on April 8, anywhere in the US, or even weeks later, it would be difficult to stop people from assuming they are related. Human brains want to make connections and attribute causes to a direct observation, and usually to an agency – like God, the Devil, or the government – to form a story in their own minds. But correlations, in the context of our narrow human views, do not mean the events have a causal relationship. Sadly, few people are well versed in understanding natural phenomenon and applying critical thinking. They prefer to believe a dramatic story and share it with others. Thus, we have these kinds of social commotions about interesting events, swirling with misinformation and pseudoscience.

Chill out and enjoy the celestial show!

#2024 #April8 #Bible #earthquake #eclipse #NewMadrid #prediction #prophecy #solarEclipse #soundsSciencey #storms

https://sharonahill.com/?p=8488