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Seismic St. Louis

Emily Sekine
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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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erin_tuttle
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The bibliography, and passages in the article, indicate that the author spent a considerable amount of time interviewing workers at Chernobyl during the initial disaster, workers involved in the continuing maintenance efforts, as well as doctors and policymakers involved in the health care system for those with radiation exposure.

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erin_tuttle
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I was interested in the accident prevention mindset that was in part responsible for poor response in past nuclear disasters, so I read a summary of “Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity” by Ulrich Beck, one of the works referenced in Schmid’s article. The summary better explained the societal mindset that a structured set of rules for accident prevention was more reliable that the educated and adaptive individual.

The point that nuclear fallout does not respect national borders was interesting, so I looked at how far fallout can spread. An understanding of how geological features such as mountains and valleys can affect the immediate fallout zone and how meteorological conditions can spread eradiated rain and wind significant distances from the site of a disaster would be important in the evacuation and clean up portions of a response to a nuclear disaster.

When discussing existing emergency response groups that dealt with nuclear disasters the IAEA was mentioned several times, so I looked into the organization and their responsibilities. Although the IEAE is often criticized for its slow response to Fukushima, I found that the organizations stated missions are to promote peaceful use of nuclear energy and safety, as well as implement safeguards meant to prevent military use of nuclear energy. While an international group that works closely with the nuclear industry it does not claim any responsibility to act as a response group to nuclear disasters.

 

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erin_tuttle
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The bibliography shows references to several papers by many of the same authors, showing it was produced as a continuation of previous ideas but showing new information learned through the PIH’s activities in Haiti and Rwanda. The bibliography also shows many references from the early to mid 1990’s showing similar thoughts to initial research done in Baltimore and other places with high rates of AIDS.