reply to post by MamaJ
Well MamaJ....trying to tie in the possibility of the new Madrid and all the other current odd quakes takes a lot more speculation. Don't get me
wrong, I have plenty of that!!

But it requires a bit more imagination and ofcourse, room for lots of error.
I have attempted to widen my view a bit more with my recent update, and go more with my intuition. I just keep coming back to a closed ecosystem.
Cause and affect. I know that sometimes an earthquake is just an earthquake (to quote a recent critic

) but I think anyone with an open mind
has to also realize that perhaps there is a lot more inner-connection and yin-yang going on with these quakes than anyone knows. (or can prove)
I have been trying to think of a good analogy for how I picture our continent. Even saying that, I realize my view is still narrow, because I am
limiting myself largely to the continental US, vs the North American Continent....but baby steps.

Anyways.....I'm struggling to put my thoughts
into cohesive words, but I will give it a try (for you!)
Imagine a piece of clay. You know, that nice grey kind that you used in school to make those lopsided cups and ashtrays back when they were still
fashionable table pieces. So....take a nice chunk of it and roll it out so it is more or less of even density and a flat oval roughly the shape of the
states. Now...imagine taking a knife and scouring a line from top to bottom...a little off-center to the right. Don't go quite all the way through,
but a little over half-way. Do the same thing to the left edge (about where the san-andreas would be)
Here is the tricky part. lay it on a table. Hold the right side with your hand, or place something solid up against it so it won't move. Take a
ruler (or something similar) and shove it up under the whole left edge of clay...about a 10th of the way in or so, also pushing up. What happens?
Ofcourse..this is a very rough analogy. To make it more accurate you would also pile some more clay on top where the mountain ranges are, you would
draw several thousand more 'cracks' to represent the other known major faults. Then there are areas of greater and less depth, making the surface
more vulnerable to 'giving'....etc. I mean, you could get really intricate, but my main point here is to keep to the basics and greatest forces at
work.
When I think of the stress placed on the North American Continent by the Pacific Plate, it's got to be great. Enough to form the Cascades. I'm
sorry, but that doesn't happen without having an affect on the rest of the landmass. I don't care if there are mountain ranges, rivers, etc.
in-between. What do you think caused those mountain ranges, if not from Glaciers? Plate tectonics, volcanics.
So this is what I am thinking when I try to take in the possible scenario of these odd quakes being connected. Going back to my analogy, what would
happen to the New madrid when enough force was placed on the landmass to the West of it? When you have something solid, with a weakened area...well,
that area of weakness is going to give. Now...with these quakes we are seeing, if you were to abscribe to this theory, you would have to understand
that these could be evidence of small amounts of energy being displaced and transfered. Our continent is riddled with faults, all results of said
stress. Why is it so far-fetched to then think that the quakes on the East Coast, could be indicators of stress being placed on the West Coast? And
that perhaps the greates area of weakness (other than the San Andreas) is the New Madrid?
The more I look, read and yes, think

, the more sense it makes to me.
So I did I completely confuse you???

edit on 30-8-2011 by westcoast because: (no reason given)