Skip to main content

Search

Seismic St. Louis

Emily Sekine

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. 

pece_annotation_1473630899

joerene.aviles

Brian Concannon (executive director) and Beatrice Lindstrom (lawyer) of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a nonprofit in Boston that fights for human rights on the island

Carrie Kahn is an international correspondent for NPR.

President Michel Martelly was the president of Haiti (from May 2011 to February 2016). 

Ban Ki-moon; the 8th and current Secretary General of the United Nations.

Jake Johnston is a researcher "of the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy and Research"

pece_annotation_1476047257

joerene.aviles

The article uses statistics from FEMA, other government studies, interviews with New Orleans residents, and other research articles about post-Katrina New Orleans. Some of the data mentioned were percentages of residents that returned to New Orleans, number of residents recieving mail, and average home loan/ assitance amounts given. 

pece_annotation_1478470145

joerene.aviles

1. Arguably, the new Ukrainian accounting of the Cherobyl unknown was part and parcel of the government's strategies for "knowledge-based" governance and social mobilization. In 1991 and in its first set of laws, the new parliament denounced the Soviet management of Chemobyl as "an act of genocide."

2. On the one hand, the Ukrainian government rejected Western neoliberal prescriptions to downsize its social welfare domain; on the other hand, it presented itself as informed by the principles of a moder risk society. On the one hand, these Chernobyl laws allowed for unprecedented civic organizing; on the other hand, they became distinct venues of corruption through which informal practices of providing or selling access to state privileges and protections (blat) expanded.

3. Government-operated radiation research clinics and non- governmental organizations mediate an informal economy of illness and claims to a "biological citizenship"-a demand for, but limited access to, a form of social welfare based on medical, scientific, and legal criteria that recognize injury and compensate for it.