Fault Line - A GeoJournal

           Following up on last week's theme of "holy guacamole, Idaho has earthquakes!?" I found a news article which discusses the role that plate tectonics played in the 6.5 magnitude quake that struck central Idaho in March of 2020. It was the strongest quake to hit the state since the  early 80s, when Idaho played host to a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that left destruction in its wake. One doesn't really think about earthquakes affecting Idaho all that often, since we're so far from California and its famous San Andreas fault line, but the truth is, according to this article, that "mid-plate tectonic activity" is actually quite common in Idaho and in regions throughout the Northwest.      Apparently the most common earthquake in this part of the country is of the basin and range variety, but neither the 1983 nor the 2020 quake match this description, running as it does from North to South rather than East to West. Some geologist hypothesize that this i

      So one thing I never considered when I was planning my move to Idaho was Earthquakes. I thought about mountains, and rockslides, and avalanches, and the potential for complete destruction by a supervolcano mere miles from my home. But earthquakes? Never even entered my mind. When I think of Earthquakes, I generally think of California, which sits atop the San Andreas fault and so has earthquakes all the time. I've personally experienced one there, as well as a couple in Alaska and, surprisingly, one in Houston, Texas, which was powerful enough to crack the foundation of my school. Thus, when I thought about moving to a place as mountainous as Idaho, it should have registered that earthquakes were a potential danger. But it never did.      Looking at Eastern Idaho, I see a large section of mountain range which, though it is petering out compared to the soaring peaks which one gets further South in Utah and Colorado, still has the power to strike one with awe. This is clearly t

      What similarities exist between Eastern Idaho and Luxor, Egypt? At first you might say "not very much, why are you asking such a stupid question?" but actually there is one thing: thousands of acres of twisting, shifting sand dunes. Yes, our own humble stretch of Idaho has its own little dune desert (well, not so little given that it's around 10,000 acres) to rival the great sprawling sand seas of Northern Africa! And just about ten minutes North of Rexburg, too.     The majority of the sediment that makes up these dunes is Quartz sand, much of which was transported thousands of miles by wind before settling in glacial lakes which used to cover this part of the country. The sediment settled at the bottom of the lakes, which eventually dried up as the climate warmed, leaving behind miles of loose sand which blew together over centuries to form large dunes, some up to 400 feet tall. The grains of sand are well-sorted by the wind and water which have affected them, and

     The hole was huge. Gaping, even. From one side to the other it yawned wide in the Earth, fifty feet or more across and deep enough that even the boys of the neighborhood, usually so bold and ready to tackle whatever danger they could find, were dutifully minding their mothers’ instructions to keep their distance. Staring down into the abyss one could see the glint of metal pipes and the jagged concrete which had come from the street previously occupying the space where the hole had developed early that morning. One young girl, remembering a trip to some caves out West the Summer previous and time spent playing amongst stalagmites and stalactites (though she could never remember which was which) had tried to scout around the edge of the cavernous collapse to look for geodes, before being pulled back by her father and sent to her room. Even now as the police placed yellow tape and blockades around the hole, a few brave souls tried to free themselves from the grip of concerned parent

       There is a wilderness trail which runs through the outskirts of Austin, Tx. Being from Houston, I don't really think all that much of Austin. As my uncle likes to say, "we don't claim them." That said, I have been on the Shoal Creek Trail, and it really is beautiful. Central Texas is one of the most amazing places on Earth, in my opinion, and walking through the green hills of Shoal Creek is enough to put one's worried heart at ease.  Texas is not, overall, a state with much variation in elevation. Truth be told, aside from the "hill country," Texas is pretty flat. Thus, we don't have to deal with landslides very often unlike a more mountainous state like Idaho or Colorado. This means that when they do happen, they tend to take residents completely by surprise and cost local governments quite a lot of money. Such is the case with the Shoal Creek Landslide that happened in May of 2018. A large rain event led to oversaturation of ground which de

The Science of Religion       There is truth. At least, I assume that there is. I know that I exist and that I'm capable of acknowledging my existence, which tells me that there is some kind of greater truth which creates the state in which I am capable of existing and comprehending things. Therefore I assume that there is truth. And as I have been gifted with five major senses and a mind, I assume that the truths which I can understand are those in the sensible world interpreted by the mental. As far as sources of truth go, there is truth determined purely by reasoning, truth interpreted from observations, truth tested through means which I determine to be empirical, and truth given to me by a trusted source, whom I assume has his or her own ways of knowing whar is, in fact, true. There is one truth which covers all of these bases: the existence of God.       I can reason the existence of God through presumptions about the functions of the universe in which I live. For instance, a