Behind science news stories, which are facts or predictions of facts, is a reality which gives them their context and sometimes their meaning.
Science magazine, January 23, 2014: “A new analysis . . . indicates that modern-day rumblings in the New Madrid Seismic Zone are not echoes of the 1811 to 1812 quakes, however. Instead, they are signs the seismic zone is still alive and kicking.”
Like New Madrid, Missouri, my home in Baltimore, Maryland is in the stable center of the stable North American plate. Earthquakes don’t happen here, except when they do. July 22, 2010, a little magnitude 3.6 earthquake rumbled through my bedroom and back out again, I woke up, thought “Oh, earthquake,” and went back to sleep. August 23, 2011, a much bigger magnitude 5.8 earthquake rumbled into my office building, stuck around for a bit, left, then came back and rumbled around some more. The four-story 19th century brick factory building shimmied, it shuddered, and I was viscerally afraid. Like when I was a kid in the cellar because the radio was saying a tornado was coming and the air was thick, the sky was dark, the winds in the clouds going crazy and tearing apart the black clouds to show their green insides. Whatever is happening, it’s big. And I’m small, soft, and easily smashed, and I’m afraid. I’m so afraid.
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