Friday, January 05, 2007

It's worse than we thought!

Oh, the Oyster is gonna love this one.

It seems that a big chunk of South Louisiana isn't only sinking slowly, it is actually sliding laterally into the Gulf.

The hell you say!
NEW ORLEANS - A new report by scientists studying Louisiana’s sinking coast says the land here is not just sinking, it’s sliding ever so slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.
The news just gets weirder.
The report, which appeared in December’s Geophysical Research Letters, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Geophysical Union, says the bedrock under heavily populated southeast Louisiana is breaking away at a glacial speed — at the pace fingernails grow.

The southward movement, the study says, is triggered by deep underground faults slipping under the enormous weight of sediment dumped by the Mississippi River.
OOoh! Faults, deep underground. Can you say Earthquake? Wouldn't that be amusing? No, actually, it wouldn't. The one bright spot is that it isn't moving fast.
He described the slide into the Gulf as “a kind of avalanche of material, except that it is happening very slowly. It moved about the width of two credit cards this year.”
But you know, with that earthquake thing, it could pick up speed at any time.

Hat tip to RNS.

6 comments:

HollyB said...

I scored a 21, just 1 point to the right of Colin Powell. And I'm OK with that. Thing I'll post the quiz on my site tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

I was hoping that Kalifornia would go first. Here in Georgia we had a small earthquack I hear. I slept through it. But atleast we are not slipping into the Gulf. Sorry to hear that.

Anonymous said...

I'd guess that in about 10,000 years the people in Pineville will be living on oceanfront property.

oyster said...

Reading this news was like a dash of urine in my morning breakfast!

Gracious. Smoke'em (and love'em) while ya got em, I suppose.

Happy New Year.

Anonymous said...

I tried to suggest that rebuilding in south Louisiana might not be a bright idea and got thouroughly flammed at Oyster's site.
How's it lookin' now?

Anonymous said...

Oops...that's "thoroughly flamed".
They don't like misspellings over there either.