Anyone been feeling small earth tremors around here or hearing booms or cracks coming from underground?

I have, and so have a few other people I've talked to as of late. Happens once or twice a week, any time of the day or night. A few days ago, it was a hard one that shook some leaves off of one of our trees and made the power lines bounce.

It's not thunder, large trucks or farm equipment either.

Out here on 8 West also. Several since winter, feels like the ground shifts real quick. Two were accompanied with the boom sound. Don't know what's going on, really "rattles" the nerves.

Maybe you should add earthquake insurance to your homeowners policy. I understand that some insurance companies have dropped earthquake coverage in Arkansas due to increased risk.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/ has information on recent earthquakes.

For instance a recent earthquake in north central Arkansas:

Earthquake Details
Magnitude 2.5
Date-Time

* Wednesday, July 08, 2009 at 01:14:25 UTC
* Tuesday, July 07, 2009 at 08:14:25 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 35.535°N, 92.312°W
Depth 0.1 km (~0.1 mile) (poorly constrained)
Region ARKANSAS
Distances

* 9 km (5 miles) SSW (210°) from Fairfield Bay, AR
* 11 km (7 miles) WSW (248°) from Higden, AR
* 13 km (8 miles) S (178°) from Shirley, AR
* 51 km (32 miles) NNE (14°) from Conway, AR
* 89 km (55 miles) N (1°) from Little Rock, AR
* 390 km (242 miles) SSW (209°) from St. Louis, MO

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 4 km (2.5 miles); depth +/- 6.1 km (3.8 miles)
Parameters NST= 6, Nph= 7, Dmin=84 km, Rmss=0.31 sec, Gp=184°,
M-type=duration magnitude (Md), Version=A
Source

* Cooperative New Madrid Seismic Network

I've been hearing those booms, too......four miles west of Mena.
Has there been any recent drilling for gas in Polk County?

My pheasants and turkeys react and sound off to the booms just like they do for thunder.

I wonder if anyone in the area works for the USGS?

BTT

I've heard about a couple of fellas that like to fill bags full of cedaline (spelling?) and shoot them......causes big boom and rattles windows in New Potter and Alder Springs area all the time. Maybe this is what you are hearing?

What does natural gas drilling have to do with booms or earthquakes. I have been in the oil and gas field almost my whole adult life and there is no scientific proof it causes it. Dallas/Ft Worth is going through the same thing right now. They are getting some minor tremors and such and some are saying it could be from all the drilling in the Barnett Shale. Studies have been done around that area but they have found no proof.

Ronnie

Out here on Race Track Road it sounds like thunder. Gets my dern hopes up it's gonna rain....but not a cloud in the sky. :scratch:

A VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN ARKANSAS

A volcano in Arkansas? You have got to be kidding!
An article published in the Arkansas Gazette on January 15, 1856 created an onslaught of speculation about a volcanic eruption in southeastern Logan County, Arkansas. It wasn't until January 15, 1981, that the Gazette republished the story of the volcano.

"...On the third day of December last, a singular noise was heard here. It has been differently described by those who heard it as like a blast in a wall, the explosion of a meteor, or a single distant clap of heavy thunder. So far as ascertained, the nearer the center or place of explosion, there was a rumbling and a sensible vibration of the earth.

"Much speculation was had as to its cause. It was not probable that it was thunder, for it was mid-winter and the sky was clear; nor blasting in a well, for people do not work in wells in the wet and wintry season. Upon inquiry we found that the explosion had been heard as far as Fort Gibson, and generally in a circle whose diameter is two hundred miles and expected to find some notice of it in the papers of your city. The other day, Col. Logan, of Scott County, visited our city and gave us an apparent solution of the mystery. "It appears, from his statement, that Mr. Wm. Gipson, while bear hunting on Christmas day, attempted to cross Dry Creek, situated in T 5 N, R. 26 W., but found the mountain to be on fire. Gipson describes it as sending forth smoke at the top which at night time has a ruddy glare and is visible for miles...The ground is heated, and the sides of the mountain are numerous fissures, through which vapor is constantly escaping..." *

The article continued to say that Mr. William Gipson stated that the steam or vapor was so hot that it was painful to the hand when held over it. He was so afraid that he did not go any further up the mountain nor did he investigate the source.

Colonel Logan (a prominent man that the county was named after) lived within five miles of the sighting and promised to visit the site and report what he had seen. Upon his investigation he reported that the earth had burst or broken up, throwing out huge masses of rock and earth. It appeared that the earth was on fire, burning from underneath. Leaves appeared to have withered and the heat from the ground gradually destroyed the roots of the trees.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/arkansas/80715

I was picking blueberries at Cauthron(near Waldron) monday and heard a boom around 8 or 9am. Jets had been flying overhead earlier so I thought it might have been a sonic boom or something. It didn't echo though, i thought it sounded kinda funny.

My parents have a big pond behind their house and from time to time you can see ripples caused by small earthquakes.

Okay, you guys are spooking me. :omg:

Is this near Waldron as well?

ROTFLMAO!!!!!! :laughing:

West of Waldron, in Blackfork.

"It appears, from his statement, that Mr. Wm. Gipson, while bear hunting on Christmas day, attempted to cross Dry Creek, situated in T 5 N, R. 26 W., but found the mountain to be on fire."

Could that be Mt. Magazine? :scratch:

excuse me bit cauthron and blackfork are opposite directions from waldron

No, they are both west of Waldron. Blackfork is south of Cauthron.

Blackfork & Cauthron

There are two Cauthrons in Arkansas.

Is the Cauthron you are talking about, the one next to Bates?

Yes.

[QUOTE=Focus,Jul 15 2009, 09:00 PM]"It appears, from his statement, that Mr. Wm. Gipson, while bear hunting on Christmas day, attempted to cross Dry Creek, situated in T 5 N, R. 26 W., but found the mountain to be on fire."

Probably not, Mr. Logan knew Dry Creek Mountain very well and being in southeast Logan County, fits the bill.

My apologies.......the article didn't say anything about 'Dry Creek Mountain'; it just said Dry Creek, so I assumed he was talking about a creek coming off of some unidentified mountain or hill.......that's why I was posing the question.
Thanks for the info, Chuck. :thumb:

I'm hearing a lot of 'booms' right now. :D
THUNDER!!!!! :clap:

Not sure exactly what area this is called, but if you take 71 South to 4 and go West until it ends and head South for 20 minutes or so, a farmer reported that 2 cracks opened in his field and steam was coming out. And a golf course maintenance worker nearby was concerned by the fact that a few places on the golf course had heaved up considerably. I was told this 2 years ago, right after it was reported.

And well drillers hit VERY hot water while drilling a well or two near Rich Mountain about the same time which concerned them.

Somethin's gonna get us all I reckon :dunno:

I have definitely felt light "shaking" a few times when almost asleep in bed. I did assume it was the earth, but I also assumed that the earth does do a certain amount of "movement", which is often imperceptible when we're up moving around all day? :scratch:

I hear these boys quite a bit, one of 'em gonna blow a finger or hand off one of these days. I know the family, not sure exactly which ones are doing it.

I was talking to a friend about this issue, and she told me that there is a large fault line thru Y City.

I googled it and came up with this:
*******************************************************************

Structural Profiles of Ouachita Mountains, Western Arkansas
Ann E. Blythe (2), Arnon Sugar (3),
AAPG Bulletin
Volume 72 (1988)



The Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma and Arkansas are the largest exposure of the Pennsylvanian-age orogen rimming the southern margin of North America. The exposure consists of a thick Carboniferous flysch sequence overlying a thin early Paleozoic deep-water sequence and is generally interpreted to have been deformed in a south-dipping subduction zone. Two balanced cross sections (~ 40 km apart) of the Ouachita Mountains in western Arkansas are presented here, illustrating the regional structural style. Major features of the cross sections include (from north to south) (1) triangle zones along the northern border of the frontal thrust zone produced by imbrication at depth, (2) large-scale (~ 10-km wavelength) fault-propagation folds in the frontal thrust zone, formed prima ily above normal faults that offset the basement and act as buttresses at depth, (3) a late-stage basement uplift along the reactivated Johns Valley normal fault system, resulting in the antiformal structure of the Benton uplift and backthrusts in the northern Benton uplift, and (4) small-scale (1-3 km) heavily faulted folds in the early Paleozoic deep-water rocks exposed in the Benton uplift. Greenschist metamorphism in these rocks is attributed to the estimated 13 km of Carboniferous overburden, which was later eroded.

Reconstructions of the late Paleozoic continental margin are made from the two cross sections. The reconstructed shelf-to-slope transition is interpreted to underlie the southern flank of the Benton uplift. Using modern analogs for the across-strike width of the shelf-to-slope transition, a minimum regional shortening estimate of 30-50% (110-155 km) is obtained for deep-water rocks currently exposed in the Benton uplift.

Exploding Squirrels! That’s what you’re probably hearing, if you live in town. If you live in the country, you’re probably hearing…..Exploding Squirrels!

Those little fuzzy tailed rats love to climb up power poles and use the lines like expressways to get from point A to point B. Which is okay, as long as they stay on one line only. The problem arises when they try to change lanes, so to speak. If they try to reach from one line to another and even comes close, LOOK OUT! They are hit with a jolt of several thousand volts at almost unlimited amperage. ( Volts X Amps = Watts. Watts = Heat. ) The result being that the water in their bodies is instantly turned to steam and KABOOM!

Don’t believe me, ask anyone from REA or SWEPCO.

No.....that's not what I'M hearing. The booms I've been hearing sound and feel more like a deep, earth-type explosion.

I've seen this with my own eyes, and they "fry and pop" rather then explode.

Must have been on the secondary side of a transformer, not the high voltage primary side. Scotto.

Boom Boom long tailed rats god i got to see that lol

It was on the primary side, the one I saw.

I used to be an electrician. :)

Felt two more tremors in the early am today, about 2:25 & 2:35.

This is weird.

And there was an earthquake in Quebec too, which was said is an odd place for one for some reason.

March 13, 2009

New Madrid fault system may be shutting down

The New Madrid fault system does not behave as earthquake hazard models assume and may be in the process of shutting down, a new study shows.
A team from Purdue and Northwestern universities analyzed the fault motion for eight years using global positioning system measurements and found that it is much less than expected given the 500- to 1,000-year repeat cycle for major earthquakes on that fault. The last large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone were magnitude 7-7.5 events in 1811 and 1812.


Estimating an accurate earthquake threat for the area, which includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky, is crucial for the communities potentially affected, said Eric Calais, the Purdue researcher who led the study.

"Our findings suggest the steady-state model of quasi-cyclical earthquakes that works well for faults at the boundaries of tectonic plates, such as the San Andreas fault, does not apply to the New Madrid fault," said Calais, who is a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences. "At plate boundaries, faults move at a rate that is consistent with the rate of earthquakes so that past events are a reliable guide to the future. In continents, this does not work. The past is not necessarily a key to the future, which makes estimating earthquake hazard particularly difficult."

The team determined that the ground surrounding the fault system is moving at a rate of less than 0.2 millimeters per year and there is likely no motion. A paper detailing the work is published in the current issue of Science magazine.

Seth Stein, co-author of the paper, said this surface movement represents energy being stored that could be released as an earthquake.

"Building up energy for an earthquake is like saving money for a big purchase," said Stein, the William Deering Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University. "You put money in over a long period of time and then spend it all at once and have to start saving again."

With an earthquake, it is elastic deformation that must be built up. This can be measured using GPS through movements on the surface, he said.

"The slower the ground moves, the longer it takes until the next earthquake, and if it stops moving, the fault could be shutting down," Stein said. "We can't tell whether the recent cluster of big earthquakes in the New Madrid is coming to an end. But the longer the GPS data keep showing no motion, the more likely it seems."

The U.S. Geological Survey-funded study used data recorded at nine GPS antennas mounted in the ground in the earthquake zone.

"GPS technology can measure movement to the thickness of a fishing line," Stein said. "Use of GPS to study earthquakes shows the impact a new technology can have. It lets us see that the world is different than we thought it was."

In the Midwest there are other faults that show no activity today but have evidence of earthquakes occurring within the past 10,000 to 1 million years, Calais said.

"If other faults in the central and eastern U.S. have been active recently, geologically speaking, they could potentially be activated again in the future," he said. "We need to develop a new paradigm for how earthquakes happen at faults that are inside continents."

Calais and Stein are exploring possible explanations for the behavior of faults like the New Madrid. One possibility is that earthquakes in these areas occur in clusters and then migrate to a nearby fault.

"There is the possibility that seismicity migrates with time as earthquakes trigger earthquakes on nearby faults," Calais said. "Geologists studying the seismic history of faults have found that there have been earthquakes on several faults in the central and eastern U.S. and that they seem to produce bursts of earthquakes and then turn off."

The team is doing additional analysis and modeling to study this further.


Writer: Elizabeth K. Gardner, 765-494-2081, ekgardner@purdue.edu


Sources: Eric Calais, 765-409-5134, ecalais@purdue.edu

Seth Stein, 847-491-5265, seth@earth.northwestern.edu


Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

I'm not sure if we would feel anything from this if there was an earthquake on the fault. Looks to me to be too far west from all the photos and maps you can find on the net.

On this evenings ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, they did a story on a town 1 hour south of Dallas (Clebourne sp?) That has been having an issue with the tremors. They had recordings of people calling 911 to the sheriffs office and also people being interviewed. The seismologists have set up 5 seismic sensors. They state they have caught plenty of shaking but no answers. Some people are blaming the shallow oil drilling but the geologists say that the tremors are deeper.

I just sent an email to these two with a link to this thread, to see if they can refer anyone to answer our questions.

Matthewsjunkie, thanks for posting that article. I found it to be very interesting.

********************************************
QUOTE (mathewsjunkie @ Jul 22 2009, 08:45 PM)
Sources: Eric Calais, 765-409-5134, ecalais@purdue.edu

Seth Stein, 847-491-5265, seth@earth.northwestern.edu


"I just sent an email to these two with a link to this thread, to see if they can refer anyone to answer our questions."


And Scotto, thanks for contacting those guys! Do hope they respond. :thumb:

Got one reply, I was referred to somebody else who I emailed with the same info.

Here is a good link for AR quakes, the most recent one recorded there was a 2.5 in Mountain View last year. Me thinks they need some seismic sensors over this way.

http://quake.ualr.edu/

Hopefully someone will take into consideration that something is going on in the area and get the sensors placed.