Did melting ice cause D.C. earthquake?
The news rang out across the nation: Mild earthquake shakes D.C. area. A real earthquake it was — not the rumblings so often emanating from “inside-the-Beltway” political battles. Although the largest earthquake in the area since tracking of such began in 1974, it was minor in intensity (3.6 on the Richter scale) and no injuries or damage were reported. But, could there be more to this? I ask in the context of two other recent noteworthy items. The first concerns a story on the disappearance of beaches along the Eastern seaboard, “Buh-bye East Coast Beaches.” As the article notes, once popular day trips from Washington to Chesapeake Beach, Md., lead now not to wide sandy beaches, but rather to “a seven-foot-high wall of boulders protecting a strip of pricey homes marked with ‘No Trespassing’ signs.” The second item concerns the breakup and retreat of one of the largest glaciers in Greenland. Water from melting glaciers contribute to rising sea levels, and thereby could enhance the thr
