Speaking of Bizarre Wisconsin Winter Phenomena...

I've been meaning to post about that Ice Quake thing.

When I woke up Friday morning at the Latin Convention in Madison, a newspaper was waiting outside my door, proclaiming something about an "Ice Quake" rattling downtown Madison the previous afternoon (before our arrival in the city). Wisconsin, seriously, doesn't have earthquakes, so I was immediately intrigued.

Ice Quake?

Yes, apparently a huge section of ice tilted and cracked right near the downtown shoreline of Lake Mendota. It rattled buildings and lots of people called 911 - one man's immediate thought was that a bus had hit the building.

Strange, huh?

Well, our Friday convention events all took place at UW Madison's Student Union - a beautiful old meandering building right on the shoreline. Once we were done with spirit and assembly as a group, the students disperesed to take their written tests. I instructed them to meet me on the first floor when they were done and proceeded to find a "home base" for them to meet me. What I found was an enormous cafeteria room with huge windows overlooking the lake and neat little one-person-sized wheeled couch units that could be gathered together in a clump.

I settled in with a few books and surveyed the view. It's a very pretty, very frozen lake, but right in front of me was a huge crack - the width of a small river - but surprisingly straight. How interesting!

Here's an article on Madison's Ice Quake

Here's some information from Alaska about Ice Quakes