Quakepunk
There’s an article in The New Yorker by Kathryn Schulz called The Really Big One. It’s been creating quite a buzz, and rightly so. It’s a detailed and evocative piece about the Cascadia fault:
When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west—losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries.
But there’s another hotspot on the other side of the country: the New Madrid fault line. There isn’t (yet) an article about in The New Yorker. There’s something better. Two articles by Maciej:
The New Madrid Seismic Zone earned its reputation on the strength of three massive earthquakes that struck in the winter of 1811-1812. The region was very sparsely settled at the time, and became more sparsely settled immediately afterwards, as anyone with legs made it their life’s mission to get out of southern Missouri.
The articles are fascinating and entertaining in equal measure. No surprise there. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Maciej Cegłowski is the best writer on the web. Every so often I find myself revisiting Argentina On Two Steaks A Day or A Rocket To Nowhere just for the sheer pleasure of it.
I want to read more from Maciej, and there’s a way to make it happen. If we back him on Kickstarter, he’ll take a trip to the Antarctic and turn it into words:
Soliciting donations to take a 36-day voyage to the Ross Ice Shelf, Bay of Whales and subantarctic islands, and write it up real good.
Let’s make it happen. Let’s throw money at him like he’s a performing monkey. Dance, writer-boy, dance!