La Jeune Fille

Couldn't put Humpty back together again...

What a strange riddle to think of after experience an earthquake! Weird!

This evening I was playing Guitar Hero, workin' on my skills. You know, rockin' out. And I heard this rumble, before I could do anything the living room was shaking.

Take a moment...




Things like this, make you think about the fact that we're lucky it wasn't the big one...

You know what I'm talking about right? I mean, the news talks about it every single time we have an earthquake that's news worthy.

If not, lemme catch you up with the very much abridged version.

The San Andreas Fault line which runs the length (about 800 miles) of the state of California, runs very, very close to my backyard. In fact, it runs in the backyard of my university, California-State University, San Bernardino. Which is within walking distance of my house.

Yay me.

It's been said that, any day now, part or ALL of California is going to break off from the United States and float out into the open sea causing a new government to spawn. A "utopia", if you will, will be conceived and who will be named leader???

Me. Obviously. :)


Ok, not really.

Geez.

But seriously? A study, done by Yuri Fialko (don't ask me how to say his name...) of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, shows that stress along the southern part of the fault line has slowly been accumulating over approximately 300 years. Historical records show that the San Andreas Fault experienced massive earthquakes in 1857 at its central section and in 1906 at its northern segment (the San Francisco earthquake). No one will forget the S.F. earthquake, nor the Northridge earthquake for that matter...

So, 300 years of pent up energy...

Two tectonic plates, pushing so hard against each other for thirty decades without going anywhere... That's pretty scary.

The unfortunate thing is we haven't figured out how to tell when an earthquake will occur. No shaman with his ear to the ground, no crystal ball, no overweight balding middle aged science prof can accurately forecast an earthquake. (Drat!)

So the moral of the story kiddies? Be prepared! Like the good ole boy scouts.