Unexplained ground cracks, tear earth in Arizona and Officials investigate cause behind massive eart

Originally posted by kimish
It could be the Earth rebounding from the melting of the ice at the poles. All that weight from the ice is allowing the Earth to bounce back so to speak. There isn't as much compression from the sheer volume due to said melting. This is why in the great lakes one shoreline is getting lower while the opposite side is getting deeper ie North/South

edit on 26-3-2013 by kimish because: (no reason given)

Sometimes it's the simplest of explanations that do it. Although not convinced, certainly worth considering. Additionally, I think the rise in earthquakes, volcanism, land rips, sea ice melting, earth sounds are all part of an earth process that's taking place. Has the sleeping giant arose?

Maybe Earth was really naughty in the past and wiped out 95% of our population. Those that were left banded together to use what technology was left to but this naughty earth into a cryogenic stasis. We however never got the memo, and started warming the earth and now she stirs.

The pyramids around the world were designed as a prison for her soul and the ice for her body.

Hahaha hey why not?

reply to post by sarahlm


Pretty sure this is nothing to worry about.... the Earth has been moving, breaking and shaking since it began... it is still expanding, growing, sinking, shaking and will keep doing so forever.... it only becomes a problem now because we can see it and the Earths population is now over 7 Billion!! The more people move and build into Areas which were previously non-inhabited, the more people will see, feel and hear these Earth's creations

I'm with Bucherguy on this one .."It would appear to me that the Arizona crack is not that new, from what I see in the pic.
If you look on the sides of the crack, you will see lichens growing. They do not spring up overnight, and they don't grow inside of solid rock. That split was made quite a while ago"

That was the first thing I noticed from that picture, and the apparent rounded edges mostly. Erosion from wind would take a little while to erase the sharp edges. Just guessing, I'd say this rift is a decade old or so at least.

i dont believe there is anything out of the ordinary happening there with the big crack, its probably just a Horst-Graben fault forming, they happen all the time, the thing is that these faults can take thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of years to form, but there has to be one point where one day they were together and then the next they had split, even if its not visible to the naked eye, but you would have to look at a comprehensive geological map to see what types of lithology exist in the subsurface, and also the history of faulting in the region and what compressional or divergent stresses are present in that geological setting.

Really nothing that extrodinary though from my perspective. I studied to become a geologist before i changed my mind and went another science direction. We used to go study and measure stuff like this in the field all the time and try to work out how they form before our professors would run us through the processes at work.

reply to post by masta12d

rebound of land is called Isostatic rebound, it really only happens on a decent scale due to downwards compression from weight from ice for the most part. Sea level increase is called Eustatic rebound/retreat. as the continental shields actually float on the mantle and are not attahced to it, the floating mechanism is known as Isostacy, the continental crust is lighter than the underlying geological blocks and is therefore lighter and floats on top of it.

what you can get though anywhere, is compressional or torsional forces either pulling apart or pressing together two tectonic plates which can cause intracratonic forces which can have effects such as these.

reply to post by BeReasonable


There are 350 miles of Arizona fissures that the geological society is investigating. If you type in Az. fissures in the search engine you can see the map tool for the fissures.It is a growing concern.Personally,I believe the extensive mining is one of the causes.

reply to post by sarahlm


It's something like stretchmarks on the Earth.