Well, it’s time again for another bunch of Back Fence posts. The beginning of summer weather has slowed down the input of news releases from most agencies…they’re out in the field. Many of our readers are looking for places to go outside, and going there, instead of sitting in a stuffy room with a computer. Good for them! Meanwhile, we’re scouring our sources for a few news items of interest.

Dalbom given leadership award

One of Traveler’s patient, and repeat interviewees on MDC forestry matters, Clint Dalbom, Forestry district supervisor at their Eminence office, was recently given the division’s Leadership Award for his quick work based on thorough knowledge during last May’s windstorms which cut off many roads in heavily forested Shannon County and elsewhere. Congratulations.

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Recreational Activities of the Ozarks group being formed

Also out of Eminence, John Mark Brewer, primary spokesperson for Voice of the Ozarks, sent us an email saying he was soliciting members for a new organization, called Recreational Activities of the Ozarks. According to Mr. Brewer, this organization “is being founded to protect recreational rights to visit” and how best to protect those rights. Their first focus will be on the road closing proposals of the National Park Service. We’ve asked for more details, but until we receive them, you may contact Brewer at john_mark_brewer@yahoo.com.

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All the toys out of the pool

On a somber note, starting June 1, the Perry Park Center pool banned the use of buoyancy suits, life jackets, water wings, swim noodles and rafts. After a visit from and on the recommendation of the American Red Cross, the Perryville Republic-Monitor reports that officials banned the use of the toys (well, a life jacket is not a toy) on the basis that they “convey a false sense of security to non-swimmers.” Nothing was mentioned about folks who know how to swim, but just like to play with toys in the pool. Traveler attempted to fact check that this was indeed an American Red Cross recommendation, but a visit to their website yielded little free information, although you could take an online course in home water and pool safety for $19.95. In a short video clip, they recommended “Throw, Don’t Go” advocating throwing something to a struggling swimmer instead of going yourself, but it was unclear what should be thrown.

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Two from USGS

The United States Geological Survey made two announcements this week of some interest:

Did the earthquakes of 1811-12 actually happen on the New Madrid Fault? And how big was it?

Susan Hough and other seismologists from USGS-Pasadena California were in the news this week. First: last month, Hough presented findings last at a meeting of the Seismological Society of America last month in Portland, Ore. claiming that the New Madrid quakes (whose bicentennial occurs next year) were a series of mere magnitude 7 quakes, not the 7.7 to 8.3 previously claimed. She bases her evidence on “intensity claims” — that is reports of damage and eyewitness accounts — since no direct instrumentation existed in the American Midwest at the time. (There was a fellow who made tracings in a sandbox in his basement in Cincinnati and then transcribed the tracings, but they were calibrated only to each other, and his journal reports.) The jump from a 7 to an 8 on an earthquake scale is an increase of 10 times in shaking.

Next, journalists were all atwitter with a claim this week, also attributed to her, that perhaps the 1811-12 series didn’t happen on the New Madrid Zone at all, but originated on the Wabash Valley fault between southern Indiana and Illinois. What Hough actually hypothesized was that the January 23, 1812 quake, the smallest of them, *may* have occurred on the Wabash zone after having been triggered by the December 16 event. Hough published this research back in 2005, but somehow it came to the forefront after the recent seismic conference. The Wabash zone, home to the 5.2 April 2008 quake, has had more medium intensity quakes on it more recently than the New Madrid. Hough said she never disputed the December and February quakes as originating in southeast Missouri; it’s just that recent research in southern Illinois and Indiana after the 2008 event have turned up evidence of soil disturbances from that era as well.
(Traveler note: Jo has corresponded with Ms. Hough on geology issues; she’s always been quite thorough and polite in putting out her ideas, and unlike journalists, treats them as science propositions, not gospel truth. She’s done a couple of seismic related books for the public, including one on the life of Charles Richter, the fellow who invented the most well-known, but generally useful only in Southern California earthquake scale.)

Second from USGS:

GAP Analysis Land Cover Viewer

Want to know what the land cover is in Pierre, South Dakota, or on your uncles farm in Ripley County? USGS and the National Biologic Service have just put a natiionwide land cover viewer online.
http://www.gap.uidaho.edu/landcoverviewer.html

It’s not quite as detailed as an actual aerial photo or Google Earth, but it’s interesting, none-the-less.