Monday, February 7, 2011

Human Seismography


Neither Jacob nor I slept well last night. Jacob's getting over a cold, so that makes sense, but I'm normally a heavy enough sleeper that his tossing and turning doesn't affect me too much. But around 4:30 this morning, he gave up and got out of bed, and I lay in bed and continued to toss and turn myself. When I got to my first class (10:15), one of my classmates laid her head on her desk and bemoaned her inability to sleep the previous night. I told her I had had the same problem! More and more classmates piped up with similar stories...one girl explaining that her whole apartment was awake at around 6 because they just couldn't sleep. People who usually sleep soundly tossed and turned. Granted, it wasn't everyone, but I've been asking people all day (in person and via facebook), and for every 1 person who reported sleeping well, there were at least 3 who reported the opposite. Folks from Yellowstone to Rexburg just couldn't catch any shut-eye.

Being a scientist (at heart), I have formulated the following hypotheses:

Possibility One: The leftover excitement from the Superbowl created a cosmic wave of energy that caused excessive alertness (unlikely).

Possibility Two: The barometric pressure changes in Rexburg affected everyone's ability to sleep (pretty likely -- we all left our homes this morning to find a bizarre snow/sleet/ice/mist thing going on).

Possibility Three: We were all attuned to slight seismic variations and/or changes in earth's electromagnetic field and there's going to be an earthquake in the next few days (awesome)!!!

Maybe it's my "Natural Disasters" class this semester that's causing me to look to geology for explanations. A friend in West Yellowstone reported that there was a small quake south of the park yesterday, but I'm having trouble finding information on it. (I'll keep you posted.)

The point is this. When Rexburg gets hit by an earthquake in the next few days, you all remember that I called it.

(Please bless that it's smaller than about a 4 magnitude. We can handle that, and the Yellowstone area could use the "release.")

2 comments:

  1. Just so you know, Yellowstone has like, the most seismic activity than anywhere else in the country. So yeah, there was probably an earthquake there.

    I learned that in MY natural disaster's class.

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  2. And there is a different feeling in the air a few days, or even the day of an earthquake.

    We know... we're from Cali. =)

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