there are lots of recent movies wherein the eastern US is destroyed by
bombs, aliens, floods, etc.
However, wouldn't it be the coolest thing if the capital of the superpower
were to be destroyed by the greed of the oligarchs?
Who is fracking for gas in the Burgess shale that lies under the eastern US?
Well, Dick Cheney and Haliburton for one.
The conjecture is steaming up about the fracking causing fisures in the rock
and thus causing earthquakes in areas where they don't usually happen.
When Obama says "the Republicans caused this quake and I'm gonna clean up",
he was not kidding.
Anyway, regardless of conjecture, the Washington Monument is now cracked.
The symbolism is there for the taking.
[it's a pyramid, no it's the cracked Washington Monument, brought upon DC by a former big man about town?]
more later
checkitout: 2 things
1 Daily Kos
Was The August 23rd Earthquake Man-made?
by kavips
You all felt it on the East Coast, shaking windows and hanging lights; moving top floors a few inches in each direction....
The USGS provides some rather interesting data. Originally listed as being <.1 kilometer, that correlates to 316.8 ft. The data has sensed been revised to stand at this writing, at 6 km, or 3 miles and 1281.6 yds,,, Only once before did this area experience a quake. A quick satellite look at the epicenter shows an area crisscrossed with drilling roads and well sites. What is at stake is the natural gas buried under the Marcellus Shale. This shale is impermeable and trapped the methane gas decomposing underneath. Most old wells went down to the shale level and stopped. Since 2009, new technology uses wastewater and high pressure to fracture that shale layer. Once fractured, the gas can escape upwards..... Now, imagine filling up an old bathtub with sand... then going to sleep on it.... It would be quite comfortable... Now suppose your significant other brings in a garden hose, turns it on and leaves it. At first the water goes into the sand. Eventually the water gets too much, that the sand/water mix can no longer hold up your weight, and you go splat, to the bottom of the tub. That is what happens to whole layers of rock when this process is applied. All the layers of rock on top, suddenly drop several feet. Whoomp... This whoomp covered the whole east coast.... Two years ago, a team fracking (fracturing the shale layer) in central WV, caused a tremor felt outside of Pittsburgh, PA... In the past year, West Virginia, a state that has never had seismic activity, is suddenly being shaken with 2.2 to 3.4tremors... This video gives you some insight into the problems that come with fracking. And this industry video shows the protections that are in place when frakking is involved. Take note of how the drill sites are set up. Officials in WV, usually company operators themselves have dismissed any connection between the new technology being developed across their state, and all the new earthquakes that have come out of nowhereduring the same time. The same occurrence took place in Arkansas. Fracking and novel earthquakes. And not just on this continent, but a 3 mile deep well drilled near Basil, Switzerland caused a 3.4 earthquake in that geologically tame region, so the well was shut down. (Unlike WV, neither Switzerland or Arkansas receive 75% of their income from energy) Out of Memphis, Steve Horton, an earthquake specialist at the University of Memphis and hydrologic technician with the U.S. Geological Survey notes: "Ninety percent of these earthquakes that have happened since 2009 have been within 6 kilometers of these salt water disposal wells," Likewise, ever since the West Virginia Oil and Gas Commission forced the disposal companies to cut back on their injection rate and pressure, the professor said, the earthquakes there seem to have dissipated. (Recently WV put emergency rules in place that require operators to file water management plans when using saltwater for fracking. The emergency rules require operators to file water management plans when using more than 210,000 gallons, citing the source and anticipated volume of withdrawals, as well as measures to protect aquatic life. The companies also must list their "anticipated additives" and say how they plan to dispose of wastewater. Arkansas went one step further. They place a moratorium on fracking to see if there was a correlation between the two. The data was implicating, but not totally conclusive. In ten days preceeding the moratorium, Arkansas experienced 100 quakes with it's largest quake in 35 years at 4.7. In the following six months, 60 quakes occurred and only one was over a 3. Most were between 1.2 and 2.8. After shocks. Just two Virginia counties away, permits to frack have already been sought in Rockingham County by a Carrizo Marcellus, LLC, a Texas company. And as any driller in Central Virginia knows, there is a wide belt of phyllite bedrock that extends across central Virginia through eastern Albemarle and western Louisa counties. This is a very soft rock that does not have the ability to hold open fractures under the confining pressures that exist beneath the surface. As a result, groundwater is scarce, and successful wells are difficult to construct. Compare this map with this satellite photo and see how the area of phyllite bedrock matches the area that is too poor a quality to farm and remains forested for that reason....
2 a compact version
Washington Monument closed indefinitely after rare earthquake
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 24, 2011 -- Updated 2012 GMT (0412 HKT)
* NEW: The Washington Monument may remain closed until after all repairs are completed
* Washington's National Cathedral remains closed after sustaining "substantial damage"
* Alert levels are lowered at the North Anna nuclear power plant
* Lincoln and Jefferson memorials reopen
Washington (CNN) -- The Washington Monument was closed indefinitely Wednesday as engineers studied ways to repair cracks at the top of the capital's iconic structure -- one day after a rare 5.8-magnitude East Coast earthquake.
Among other things, several pieces of mortar fell inside the monument's observation area during the earthquake, a National Parks Service spokesman said.
An outside structural engineering firm will conduct a more thorough damage assessment, and the monument may not be re-opened to the public until after any necessary repairs are completed, the spokesman added.
Washington's National Cathedral also was closed after sustaining what its staff described as "substantial damage," including numerous cracks in the building's limestone blocks and broken pinnacles on its towers.
"It's still kind of a state of shell shock here," CNN's Brian Todd said Wednesday, reporting from the town. "People still just can't believe this happened. This is a natural event that just does not happen on the East Coast."
With so many along the coast unaccustomed to earthquakes, many people were left wondering whether all that rumbling could have been caused by a truck, helicopter, an explosion or some other force.
Desi Fleming, a resident of Mineral, said the quake arrived with a rumbling "that sounded like a train coming to a stop." It knocked down two chimneys on the converted 1900-vintage home that now houses her parcel-shipping business.
...
Kate Duddy was alone in an office building elevator in Manhattan when the shaking started.
"I have never felt a quake before. It was scary having no idea what the cause was," she said. "I felt the vibrations, and the elevator stopped for a period of about five minutes."
At Washington's National Zoo, some animals started reacting moments before the earthquake was felt by their human caretakers.
About five or 10 seconds before the earth shook, several apes abandoned their food and climbed to the top of a treelike structure, according to a statement from the zoo. A gorilla named Mandara grabbed her baby -- named Kibibi -- and also moved to the top of the structure.
At the same time, a flock of 64 flamingos grouped themselves together and remained huddled until the shaking stopped.
Further south, the earthquake triggered an automatic shutdown of Virginia's North Anna nuclear power plant after it lost electricity.
Early Wednesday, Dominion Virginia Power said primary power was restored to the cooling systems of two nuclear reactors that had been affected. The plant, located less than 20 miles from the earthquake's epicenter, used back-up diesel generators after power was lost, the company said.
