Scientists and amateurs — even a healer — went to the Antelope Valley to study the baffling rise in the Earth's crust. Some said it was an illusion caused by faulty equipment.
The Palmdale Bulge — it sounded like some sort of waistline problem afflicting middle-aged men.
But it referred to something even more ominous in the mid-1970s — the reported uplift of the Earth's crust by as much as 18 inches along the San Andreas fault in the Antelope Valley.
Scientists wondered if it was the harbinger of a giant earthquake. Or perhaps a volcano.
Southern Californians were uneasy in the aftermath of the 1971 Sylmar quake that killed 64.
And now there was this real-life land mass said to be rising ominously in Palmdale, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles.
Riding to the rescue were "more than 300 scientists, engineers and technicians" who would arm themselves with instruments and "swarm all over the Palmdale Bulge for three months ... to determine the exact contours and extent of this mysterious swelling," The Times reported in December 1977. The U.S. Geological Survey funded the $1.4-million project.
<SNIP>View entire article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1212-then-20101212,0,5818783,full.story
--
Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/
Read our blog at http://eclecticarcania.blogspot.com/
Visit me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/derkimster
__._,_.___
No comments:
Post a Comment