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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. 

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jaostrander
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The main point of the article is to show the ethical and enviromental danger inmates face on Riker Island. This is supported by the description heat emergencies that are risking lives of inmates, air pollution in the facility due to methane gas that is being produced by the landfill it was built on, and the shifting in the ground that is leading to cracking, subjecting facilities to flooding during extreme weather.

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jaostrander

Emergency response is one of the main ideas of this article. Schmid expresses the importance of emergency response to nuclear disaster in that prevention can only go so far and in the specific case of nuclear disaster the cause is often unpredictable and unavoidable (natural cause ie. Hurricanes, tsunami). Without an appropriate emergency response system in place nuclear disasters will continue to cause significant environmental damages, infrastructure damages, and harm citizens. 

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jaostrander

Paul Farmer is an American physician and anthropologist who is known for providing appropriate healthcare in under developed regions and developing countries. Farmer is situated in emergency response in that he is a physician providing care to those in need and works toward ensuring that people will have access to healthcare despite socioeconomic conditions. Bruce Nizeye works alongside Farmer and specializes in TB infection control in Rwanda. Sara Stulac is a physician who specializes in women’s and children’s healthcare. Her focus has included pediatric HIV prevention and treatment, malnutrition care, inpatient pediatrics and neonatology, and pediatric oncology and other non-communicable disease treatment. Salmaan Keshavjee is a physician who specializes in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and in providing access to healthcare in poverty stricken regions.