Chicago is Sinking!

1 millimeter a year that is. a study shown by northwestern university, says the cause for chicago sinking was the melting canadian glaciers.

story.news.yahoo.com.../ap/20040520/ap_on_sc/chicago_sinking_1

Actually I thought it would have been worse than that. Chicago is a city that really shouldn't be there. It's built on a swamp. When first constructed, the level was raised one full story. Back when I lived there, I was amazed to hear stories about sidewalks collapsing because of a hollow substructure.

Just Like Mexico City. It sinks quite a bit per year.

Canada on the other hand is doing the opposit. Parts of Canada have seen as high as 5mm raise in elevation.

Originally posted by sardion2000
Parts of Canada have seen as high as 5mm raise in elevation.

Right on! lol

Originally posted by CommonSense
Actually I thought it would have been worse than that. Chicago is a city that really shouldn't be there. It's built on a swamp. When first constructed, the level was raised one full story. Back when I lived there, I was amazed to hear stories about sidewalks collapsing because of a hollow substructure.

Well what kind of idiots build a city on a swamp?

i remember reading a while ago that a lot of cities are sinking due to the weight of sky scrapers, highways, and everything else. i could just be wrong though.

Well what kind of idiots build a city on a swamp?

A whole lot of different kinds. Many different cities around the world are built on soft land.

New York is also sinking.

The weight of everything is pushing down on the granite bedrock, leading it to sink

Originally posted by AD5673
Well what kind of idiots build a city on a swamp?

Remember the direction of the Chicago River used to flow into Lake Michigan not out of the lake. When they built the city they reversed the flow so that water flows from the lake to the Mississippi. Essentially Chicago was built on a river delta. Not good!

Yikes! Aaah well, I'm in England. We don't have many sky scrapers or big highway's in Lincolnshire (oh no, what about the all new extended A46 )


But seriously, that's pretty dumb isn't it?

[Edited on 22-5-2004 by LadyCool21]

Originally posted by sardion2000
Canada on the other hand is doing the opposit. Parts of Canada have seen as high as 5mm raise in elevation.

I'd be interested in reading more about that, have you got any links, sardion?

This is an interesting story, though. Especially this,

"All of Canada's going up," said Seth Stein, a Northwestern professor of geological sciences who helped organize the study. "The U.S. is going down."

I'll be looking into this more.

o well, whadya gonna do about it? New Orleans has a really big problem like that.

Originally posted by Nerdling
New York is also sinking.

The weight of everything is pushing down on the granite bedrock, leading it to sink

Is that why they(New Yorkers) send half of them(other New Yorkers) to Florida each year?
j/k

Florida is built mostly on swamp too. Don't know if it's sinking or not though.

Edited for clarification...

[Edited on 5-23-2004 by darklanser]

post glacial rebound

1. Requirement for International Study. The Earth's crust north of the Great Lakes was pressed down by up to 3 km of ice in some areas during the last glacial era. When the ice melted some 10,000 years ago the crust started rebounding. This is called postglacial rebound (PGR) and it is still going on today. While the land north of the Great Lakes is rising, for equilibrium, the land south of the Great Lakes is subsiding. Hence, residents on the south shores of the Great Lakes have noticed water level rising slowly over time. On the other hand, rising land and shore to the north of the Great Lakes leads to declining water levels relative to the adjacent shoreline. A precise estimation of PGR is achieved by studying water level records from water level gauges of both countries.

Thanks for that, Howard.

It fits in with other stuff that I've read about water levels, etc., in Canada.