Mystery Earthquakes In Gulf Of Mexico

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Another mid-range earthquake shakes the Gulf of Mexico. The shock waves rattled a good quarter of the USA. This is all connected to some very obscure fault lines that intersect with the infamous and extremely dangerous New Madrid complex. Also, oil has been found deep in the Gulf. Oil and earthquakes live in the same neighborhoods.

Something is making the Gulf buckle and shake.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A strong, 6.0 earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico was felt throughout the Southeast but caused no apparent damage, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake was not powerful enough to trigger a tsunami warning.

The quake, about 250 miles west of Tampa, Florida, was "pretty unusual" for the area, although a 5.2 magnitude quake was recorded nearby in February, said USGS seismic analyst Jessica Sigala.

The most distant reports came from Rosman, North Carolina, and Pickens, South Carolina, both about 600 miles from the quake's center.

February 10, 2006, there was a 5.2 quake in the same place.

The 5.2 quake last winter was a surprise to me. I did some small research and discovered this was right in the center of a proposed juncture of several plates that have been pretty inactive as far as geologists have noticed. As usual, the news stories for this much bigger quake this week have been pretty thin reading. Even the National Geographic has little interesting to say.

Seems all the news media wanted to know was, did any houses fall down or any tsunami smash into houses?

AP: Florida is an unlikely spot for an earthquake because it is far from the boundaries of the massive tectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. California, on the other hand, is perched atop the intersection of the Pacific and North American plates. On Monday alone, scientists had recorded 23 earthquakes in California by 4 p.m. None were strong enough to be noticed by residents.

*snip*

Sunday's temblor was a rare "midplate" earthquake where pent up energy from faraway plate collisions is released in random spots. There is no way to tell where the earthquake will strike. Scientists are intrigued by Sunday's temblor because the USGS recorded a magnitude 5.2 earthquake in the same spot on Feb. 10.

Well, it wasn't the 'same spot' at all unless sameness is about 400 miles apart. It was on the intersection of the hidden faultline running alongside Florida. The other quake was right below beleaguered New Orleans. It was smack dab in the middle of a great oil deposit range. There is oil along the faultline which hosted this week's quake, too.

Lots of oil deep in the seas around the planet.

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
September 11, 2006
Oil companies are buzzing after Chevron, Devon Energy, and Norway-based Statoil ASA last week announced the successful discovery of oil at a staggering depth beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico (map of region).

Jack 2, as the new test well is called, extends downward for more than five miles (eight kilometers).

The well delves through 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) of seawater and more than 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) of seafloor to strike oil in the lower tertiary formation—a layer of rock laid down between 65 million and 24 million years ago.

Aren't we clever! We will suck up all the world's oil in record time, just watch! Actually, all the oil from this discovery won't make any difference in overall oil extraction since it will simply fill in where other wells are dropping off. Namely, aggregate amounts of oil are at a peak and maybe even dropping despite 'discoveries' in increasingly difficult to reach places.

But the main thing to worry about is whether another New Madrid quake is pending. Like the ones in California, it isn't a matter of it never happening again, it is merely what day in the not very distant future it will happen.

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