Sugar plantations, Chemical Plants, COVID-19
The chemical plants in Cancer Alley are built where there once were sugar plantations. Descendants of enslaved communities still live nearby.
Combo Disaster and Environmental Injustice
Join us for the Disaster STS Network’s Fall 2021 virtual tour of Louisiana's Cancer Alley, a corridor of chemical plants along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans with shockin
Seismic St. Louis
Emily SekineAnnotation of
In response to
I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.
On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.
On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.
For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius.