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Public Events --

  The Great ShakeOut & National Fossil Day   

The Great ShakeOut & National Fossil Day

  • Location: Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Springfield
  • Date: Thursday, October 16, 2014, 9:30 AM - 7:00 PM

9:30 AM-4:30 PM The Great ShakeOut… and So Much More: The Great ShakeOut earthquake drills are an opportunity to practice how to be safer during earthquakes. The ShakeOut has also been organized to encourage you, your community, your school, or your organization to update emergency plans and supplies, and to secure your space in order to prevent damage and injuries. To learn more visit www.shakeout.org. Not only will we be ”Dropping, Covering, and Holding On” at exactly 10:16AM to practice earthquake preparedness, but we will also have a ton of fun, hands-on activities for students, families, kids, adults… anyone!  Expect museum paleontologists, other geologists, and educators to be on hand, orchestrating projects and activities to illustrate what actually happens during an earthquake. Test buildings that you engineer, learn about P- and S-waves via Slinkys, watch videos of earthquakes, understand the force of earthquake levels, and lose yourself in an automated shake table.

Think these lessons and exercises of preparedness don’t pertain to you? Think again.

7 PM Central U.S. Earthquakes Lecture by Robert Bauer: Remember 2008? When an earthquake occurred in the Wabash Fault Zone? Perhaps you felt it. It was important to be prepared for that event, but even more so, it’s important to be prepared for an earthquake along the New Madrid Fault Line – the most active seismic area in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. From 1811-1812, there was a series of three to five major earthquakes along this fault. When it happens again, we need to be prepared. Join us at 7PM – or earlier for shake tables and fossils – to hear Robert Bauer, engineering geologist at the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), present Central U.S. Earthquakes: What We Know and What to Expect.

9:30 AM-7 PM Fossils! We love fossils! You should too! National Fossil Day is a celebration to promote public awareness and stewardship of fossils, as well as to foster a greater appreciation of their scientific and educational values. To celebrate, we invite you to investigate impressive fossils from our own collections and to make fossil rubbings with real museum scientists from 9:30 AM-4:30 PM. Visitors will also be able to view the collections of Lincoln Orbit Earth Science Society (LOESS) members from 5-7 PM. Many of these fossils come from the Mazon Creek area in Grundy, Will, Kankakee, and Livingston counties. These fossils are recovered from natural exposures on the creek, active and abandoned strip mines, shaft mines, and mine spoil piles.  What makes this area so special is the abundance and exceptional preservation of fossils – in fact most natural history museums have Mazon Creek fossils in their collections! 

Also view our state fossil on permanent exhibit – the Tully Monster! Geek out. Freak out. And don’t worry; the shake table will still be out until 7:00 PM.

 

For more events at Illinois State Museum, Springfield.