When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

By  Dr. Herny Flores, NewsTaco

The horrible earthquakes that have recently ravaged Nepal have left me thinking about the strange situation of Texas.  What, you say do these two countries have in common.  Yes, Texas is a separate country than the rest of the USA.  Mind you I’m a lifelong Tejano whose family has lived in the same area of Texas longer than the United States has been a nation.  And, us Texans have never really thought of ourselves as anything other than Texans.  Being a Texan is not just a state but a state of mind.  But, that’s a topic for another column.

Nepal v Texas

 Nepal versus Texas would not make for a good football game.  Of course, those folks would probably beat us in a mountain, hill, climbing tournament.  What these two countries have in common are earthquakes.  Of course, Nepal’s earthquakes are natural occurrences given the geology of their nation.  Texas’s earthquakes, on the other hand, are induced by humans.  Humans can cause landslides, flooding, heat spots over heavily populated urban centers and now we have added earthquakes.

Yes, sports fans us humans, maybe not you and me, are causing earthquakes in Texas where we used to not have any.  When I was a graduate student I worked on an earthquake research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).    Yup one of the scientific research organizations Lamar Smith (R-TX) is trying to defund.  Well, you say what was a political commentator doing on an earthquake mitigation research project?  Well, I was a graduate student and it was good money at that time.  It paid the bills, besides I learned a great deal.

Earthquake Research

 During my research I discovered a map that had been created by one of the many national science research organizations funded by our tax dollars, the United States Geological Survey (USGS).  The map was of all the natural earthquake zones around the United States and what I discovered was that Texas was in a zone that was very old geologically where the earth was stable and was not supposed to have naturally occurring earthquakes.

Yup Texas is so old geologically that just north of San Antonio in what is called the Hill Country you can actually find dinosaur foot prints in the limestone.  When my school could afford field trips, once every five years or so, the good sisters used to take us up to the Hill Country to explore the caves and hill country steams.  The area was so beautiful that sometimes it was referred to as God’s country.  Wouldn’t you know it, God didn’t care for any other parts of the globe other than Texas?  Nevertheless, I discovered those dinosaur footprints on one of those elementary school field trips and was simply fascinated by them as any young boy would.

Man Induced Earthquakes

 Earthquakes did not start occurring in Texas until a few years ago coincidentally with the beginning of natural gas and oil fracking operations.  For the uninitiated fracking is drilling down to extremely deep layers of the earth to extract oil and gas.  The only way we can extract oil and gas that deeply entrapped is to inject water treated with some very  carcinogenic chemicals to force the minerals to the surface.

Well, this process has several consequences—the chemicals poison the land, we lose a great deal of water that could be used for other purposes such as agricultural irrigation and ranching, and we cause earthquakes!  Yup, fracking destabilizes the natural geological structures and then the earth has to move to resettle itself.  That’s what earthquakes are, movements of the earth to resettle or settle itself.  Those in Nepal are simply the natural movement of young geological structures.  In Texas they are not natural but caused by man, mostly men in this industry, looking for more fossil fuels and money. In Nepal the earthquakes are natural; in Texas the earthquakes are more like the dinosaurs getting their revenge for humans encroaching on their final resting places.


Henry Flores, PhD, is the Distinguished University Research Professor, Institute of Public Administration and Public Service; Director, Masters in Public Administration (MPA); Professor of International Relations and Political Science at St. Mary’s University. He is the author of Latinos and the Vorting Rights Act: The Search for Racial Purpose.

henry_flores_book Latinos and the Voting Rights Act: The Search for Racial Purpose.

 

 

[Photo by Chiot’s Run/Flickr]
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