Ice quake!!!
I haven't posted in forever, and I hope that I start again soon. The semester, once I turn in a bunch of random things that are due on February 12-15, should be much better than last semester, so maybe that will translate into more LJ. But today something very exciting happened. In fact, it is one of the most exciting things that has happened to me recently. (If I weren't such a nerd, I would find it very sad that this was so exciting compared to everything else that happens to me.) But anyway, I was sitting in my office in Van Hise today when all of a sudden I felt a very definite tremor that lasted a few seconds. Weird things do tend to happen in Van Hise (elevator number one has been getting stuck on our floor a lot lately, and sometimes the heating vents sound like they contain revving jet engines), but when you're on the 13th floor and the building shakes, well...
So I conferred with others nearby, who definitely also felt something and were also slightly unnerved. But I had to go to class across campus, so, unable to consult any media (I was actually on my way to my "media and human behavior" class!) I called
lollyjoy, who was in Animal Sciences. And it turned out that they, too, had felt shaking! Confident that Laura would perform many an internet search in pursuit of the answer while I was indisposed, I went to class. I was right--she immediately found a website that posts seismic events and monitored it. But no hits for Madison.
Finally, out of class and back home, and having discussed possible reasons for the tremor (earthquake, plane crash, bomb) and called nearby friends to see if they had felt anything (Middleton: negative), the NBC 15 webpage had the answer: it was an ice quake! And now we know.
So I conferred with others nearby, who definitely also felt something and were also slightly unnerved. But I had to go to class across campus, so, unable to consult any media (I was actually on my way to my "media and human behavior" class!) I called
lollyjoy, who was in Animal Sciences. And it turned out that they, too, had felt shaking! Confident that Laura would perform many an internet search in pursuit of the answer while I was indisposed, I went to class. I was right--she immediately found a website that posts seismic events and monitored it. But no hits for Madison.
Finally, out of class and back home, and having discussed possible reasons for the tremor (earthquake, plane crash, bomb) and called nearby friends to see if they had felt anything (Middleton: negative), the NBC 15 webpage had the answer: it was an ice quake! And now we know.