Tag Archives: earthquake

Standing at the Edge of the Precipice

Just came in from the garden a few minutes ago and not a moment too soon. It’s just too hot to work out there even at nine o’clock in the morning. I probably stayed out longer than I should have, but it seems like every time I get ready to come in, there’s always just one more thing I need to do, and on and on…

I don’t usually try to grow watermelons, but this year I decided to try my luck and lo and behold, there are several nice sized melons growing and the plants are still green and healthy. My usual luck is that the vines start getting brown and the leaves turn and dry out by this time of year, and if there are any melons growing, they just stop at whatever size they are when the plants start getting sick and that’s it, but this year they seem to be doing really good. I think they’re the crimson sweet variety. So here’s hoping.

Back to the heat this year – is it just me or does the weather seem to be taking a turn for the worse as far as global warming, climate change – whatever!? Seems like the weather is getting extremely hot this summer everywhere. There are videos showing how bad it is in China with those poor people just cooking in 120 plus weather. There are heat-induced wildfires raging right now all over southern Europe – Spain, Italy and especially places in Greece. Canada is and has been burning down, and here in the US we have an unusually large number of fires going as I write. Indeed, the Good Book says the world will end by fire. 2 Peter 3:10]; “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.”

If places aren’t burning down, it seems like they are being flooded. Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New York City, and right now Tennessee all have been severely flooded lately, and with hurricane season getting into full swing, there are more floods to be expected. Several places in Europe and Asia are experiencing catastrophic floods these days too.

I don’t know about anyone else, but the way things are unfolding these days, it sure seems to me that the Almighty isn’t very pleased with us human beings for the way we’ve been misbehaving of late. There are more volcanoes erupting right now than I can remember all at once in my lifetime. Looks like that big 8.7 earthquake in Kamchatka might have somehow awakened several volcanoes in that region because there are some erupting that have been dormant for centuries and that just since the big temblor. Other areas experiencing quakes are in particularly scary places – like Campi Flegrei, the fields of fire in Italy. That place is the home of a genuine super volcano and if it undergoes a super volcano eruption (VEI (Volcano Explosivity Index) 7 or 8), it will likely have profound global implications, and not good ones.

It seems like all the dominoes are lined up and ready to start falling worldwide, and that’s not even counting what our illustrious leaders might bring upon us what with all the endless bellicosity and threats of war we constantly hear. The Bible speaks of a time of great tribulation that’s coming to the world in the end times, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how it can come about, in fact, several places in the world are experiencing horrible tribulations right now. The hapless people of Gaza are undergoing a tribulation, and I don’t see how it could get much worse for them. They are and have been watching their loved ones being slaughtered and starved to death, thousands of people with severe injuries and no hope of medical help. Hospitals, churches, and all institutions of government there have been systematically destroyed.

We can all – as in everyone in the world – see what is happening to Gaza, and most people of conscience are horrified both by what is happening and by the stark realization that there are indeed entities in the world that try to pass themselves off as human beings who are capable of such brutality and barbarism. It’s a scary realization, because one has to acknowledge the reality that these same horrors can and will eventually be visited upon any and everyone who stands against them. People are being locked up in Merry old England for simply protesting against genocide today – how much longer before the “authorities” start executing those of us who stand against evil? It might sound outlandish here in the US, but don’t we have unbadged goons already prowling our cities right now, grabbing people off the streets and locking them up with no due process?

There will come a time when the powers that be will issue orders to thugs like the ice goons to shoot people on sight who attempt to obstruct them, and if you think I’m being hyperbolic, well, you’ve got another think coming. Read your Bible. The day will come when Satan turns all of the world’s authorities against his true enemies, Christians. We’ll see a time when followers of Jesus Christ anywhere in the world will be sought out for execution. If you are a believer, you already know this. If you are a faithful believer, you do not fear it, for you know that the moment you cross through that door, the Lord Jesus Christ will be there to meet you with open arms. He will call you a good and faithful servant and you will be shown into your own mansion in His Kingdom, a place of joy and peace where you will spend eternity with Him. The thugs who will be serving Satan in those times, will also die sooner or later as everyone does, and unless they repent, they will face something more dreadful than any mind on earth could ever imagine. But this will be the result of their own choice.

The days of tribulation – for those of us who haven’t yet suffered them yet – are fast approaching, and as believers, we must be prepared and ever watchful, for the time of His return will be as He said, “As a thief in the night.” He will come at a time of the Father’s choosing, and nothing – not epic world events, nor mundane issues like whether or not my watermelons are ripe – will have any bearing on His time of reckoning. Nothing. We must continuously be watchful and always be ready to go at any moment. This also means we must be ready to face whatever trials the enemy puts before us and stay faithful to the end, then He has a crown for us – what a fantastic event!

If you have been running the race, be especially careful from here on out, because the enemy will be throwing everything he has in his arsenal at us. Be careful to not fear and stay faithful. His time is short, and he knows it. Donald Trump doesn’t know it. Benjamin Netanyahu or Elon Musk or all of the world’s rich people do not know it – they can see no further into the future than Satan allows, otherwise they too, might turn and be saved, but no, they delude themselves into thinking their lifestyles will last, at least as far as they care to look. The only things they care about are wealth and power, but they don’t realize they won’t be able to buy friends and security with money that can never again be spent – anywhere, ever. Satan knows his end is near, but his chief servants don’t know it’s near, nor what that entails for them. At this point in time their greatest fear is losing their wealth, their status; being made equal with the common man, and it is a tremendous fear indeed, but when the end gets here, as it already has for so many of them (if you haven’t noticed, men like Sheldon Adelson, Jacob Rothschild, and Henry the Eighth aren’t around anymore) there are no words for the horror they will face before an angry Almighty God.

Satan, for his part, long ago waged war on the saints of Jesus, and the big advantage he has provided for his servants is economic and political power over the saints. He has given them the ability to purchase high offices (google Citizens United), and in order to serve him, those offices must eventually be dedicated to defeating his greatest enemy – the servant of Jesus Christ. If you think differently, if you think the high offices of this great government are beyond the reach of the evil one, if you think the senate and the congress, the supreme court, or even the white house, are unassailable by Satan, I urge you to look at the genocide support by the members of our government. Look at their financial statuses. Look at their AIPAC support. The synagogue of Satan has purchased their souls – it’s plain as day. If you think followers of Christ are safe anywhere in this country or this world, think again. They’ll be coming for us soon – count on it. This only applies to real Christians, not the ones that pack the megachurches of false pastors – they’re safe enough, at least for now.

I understand it’s a lot easier to talk about not fearing than actually rejecting fear, but do not forget we have access to a weapon that is guaranteed to give us what we need to win out over fear. Love. It’s right there in the word. [1 John 4:18]: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” There it is! Think about it. Think about all those servants of Jesus in the days of the early Church – those believers who were thrown to the lions in the coliseum of Rome, the disciples who were martyred – they were fearless, and so must we be today when the times of trial come upon us. We must pray for the mighty weapon of love to cast off our fear and strengthen our hearts when the real time of trial comes to us.

The tough times of tribulation are within sight now for all of us, and as mentioned earlier, such times are already here for many. The weather, the landslides, earthquakes, wildfires, wars, and other calamities are growing more frequent and intense. We were warned of these times, now we must endure them. Spiritual powers are arrayed against us, over whom we have no advantage – unless we receive that love and understand the Spirit of Jesus Christ, Who is able to give us the succor we need to emerge victorious in this – the grandest of all battles! It can be won, and I hope to see y’all on the other side!

May the blessings of the Almighty find and keep us.

MK

Atlantis in the Mississippi River Sand?

Image result for free pics of cities sinking in mudslides

Liquefaction – possibly one of the least understood, yet one of the most dangerous processes of nature. The definition from Dictionary.com is the act or process of liquefying or making liquid, and it’s fairly easy to understand. When something we regard to be solid, i.e., for the purpose of this article, the ground transmutes from its solid state to a liquid or fluid. Imagine walking across the yard and just sinking as though you stepped out of a boat into the lake. In the illustration below, the poor house on the right from https://ar.inspiredpencil.com/pictures-2023/soil-liquefaction is sinking in sand – one of the problems this earthquake causes. Keep in mind though, that with the New Madrid event, little water proportion of the mass is involved.

Soil Liquefaction

Liquefaction is what makes quicksand, because when ground water from a spring flows up through typically sandy soil, it causes the individual grains of sand to become loosened from each other with the space between them becoming filled with water and anything solid, such as a human foot, leg, or torso simply succumbs to gravity much the same as if you were being submerged in Lake Powell. The only problem is, even though the resistance to motion in quicksand is easily overcome by gravity, it is too great for a person or animal to swim in, so we sink. There are ways the experts teach to slow the sinking process, depending on the fluid consistency, even to possibly escape from it, but that information is outside the scope of this article.

There are other soil types which can allow liquification, or liquefaction, such as particular clays found in the fiord country of Norway, and in fact this soil, called quick clay has caused some particularly catastrophic events over there. An informative documentary on how it works can be found here: Bing Videos. The ground where people had built their homes and farms just simply turned into the consistency of mercury and washed itself away.

This property of sandy soils to become liquified by water can also occur as a result of intense vibration of the earth, in which the water is replaced by air between the sand granules, and it can be just as destructive as actual water quicksand, as happened during a catastrophic earthquake, the epicenter of which was near New Madrid, Missouri back in late 1811 and early 1812. There’s a lot of material available with eyewitness accounts of that disaster, and from what I’ve seen, it may have been one of the most horrifying earthquakes ever endured by people. A lot of them seriously thought it was the end of the world. For many of them, it was.

The Mississippi delta country rests on unimaginable amounts of sand laid down over the millennia by that Old Man River. The sand extends down to great depths with no bedrock, so when the ground shakes, the whole delta becomes one vast ocean of loose, flowing liquid sand and some of the accounts of folks who were unfortunate enough to be caught up in the maelstrom were truly horrifying. Giant canyons opened up swallowing forests, buildings, and the river itself. In places great volumes of sand were flowing and spewing out high into the air from the subterranean pressure. It was estimated to have been of a 7 or 8 magnitude, so it was powerful indeed, but less so than some quakes we’ve experienced in our lifetime on different types of earth.

The fountains of sand that occurred during that quake left layers of sand in places interspersed between layers of deposited soils of different types, so as geologists drilled down in these areas, they noticed there were several layers of sand thus separated by forest loams and such from which it could be determined by its thickness how long it took to deposit it. One of the ominous things they found from this is that our respite time has reached its “use by” date and the area is due for another shake any time. This fairly accurate timeline as to the frequency of the New Madrid earthquakes created a whole new dimension to the threat of this earthquake reoccurring.

Several big cities, Memphis in particular, but St. Louis and even some as far away as Detroit, Minneapolis, and yes, New York depending on the magnitude of the earthquake, have grown up since the last major earthquake on the New Madrid fault. These metropolises were not built guided by earthquake codes as they are in, say, California, a state with considerable and recent seismic activity. There are engineering techniques that are required to minimize damage from shaking, but in Memphis in particular, these measures might not be much help anyways, because due to the liquefaction described earlier, Graceland and its surrounds might just sink into a vast, sandy soup. What an image! The other eastern cities would probably sustain a lot of damage due to rocking and rolling, but a lot of towns in the delta country might just disappear! A lot of useful information that explains things better can be found here 1811-1812 New Madrid, Missouri Earthquakes | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

Those quakes in the early 1800s were horrific in their own right and did terrible damage, but if a quake of that magnitude were to hit (and scientists unanimously agree that it will, there is debate, however on how severe it will be) it will likely be catastrophic to the entirety of the eastern United States. The shaking was so violent it caused the Mississippi to run backwards and that’s a lot of water to turn about face! Most of the eastern US that’s not on the sand ocean sits on ancient seabed, so it’s like a contiguous limestone rock with little distortion to dampen seismic waves, so they would be able to travel unimpeded through hundreds of miles without losing a lot of seismic strength. That is another reason such a large area will be in danger from a Mew Madrid temblor.

The farm on which my family and I currently live is just over a hundred miles from New Madrid. Oh, and for those who are pronunciation Nazis like myself, it’s not New Madrid’, as in the capitol of Spain with emphasis on the last syllable, it’s pronounced around here, and now generally nationwide as New Mad’rid – emphasis on mad, like our politicians. Anyways, I guess when that thing goes off, we’ll get some serious action here. At least we’re far enough into the Ozark upthrust that maybe we won’t get swallowed up by the tsunami of liquid sand!

My thoughts are with those souls who live in the vast Mississippi delta country and who are at greatest risk from this quake.