Got water in your basement?
David Rogers is one of our most prolific experts here at Missouri S&T. He knows as much as anyone about things relating to levees, floods, hurricanes, and so on. So, after pumping out the ex-wife's flooded basement for the fourth time in four months last week (this is in Springfield), I sent Dr. Rogers an email to ask him some questions about basements and water. I'm passing his response on as a sort of public service announcement:
In regards to your basement:1) We have had record rainfall this year, even greater than in 1993, so it should be no surprise that you are experiencing some seepage
2) seepage always occurs "bottom-up", just as you describe, because of hydraulic pressure increasing with depth, at rate of 62.4 pounds per cubic foot per foot of depth. The more hydraulic pressure you get against the basement wall, the more seepage that can pass through a hairline crack at the base of the wall stem, where it joins the foundation footing. There is usually a "cold pour" joint at that location which develops a shrinkage crack, and that's where the moisture typically seeps in. So, seepage is all about hydraulic pressure (depth of water on opposite side of the wall), more than any other factor. We've had a really wet year, so all the pores in the soil become saturated, incapable of accepting additional moisture. When it rains the water presure increases very quickly. The other problem is anteceedant mositure. When the ground is near-saturated, rain can't be absorbed by the soil, so runoff increases, dramatically. That's why it floods with a so-called "normal storm (about 1.5 hrs duration), that never previiously caused problems. In the Midwest all of the flooding is intimately tied to anteceedant moisture levels, looking at the past 72 hrs, 1 week, 2 months, and even past 3 months, depending on the size of the watershed.
The bad news is it took months to get into the predicament we find ourselves in right now, and it will take another 6 months or so for us to get out of the "flood danger window," because the anteceedant moisture levels are so high. For example, the Gasconade River experienced its highest recorded flow this past spring, greater than 1983 (the previous record) or even 1993. So from here on everything devolves down to the rainfall patterns that develop this summer, with the most important factors being the duration of dry spells between storms.
Hope that info helps you understand what's going on.
They're not exactly Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, or even Jack Kerouac and Dean Moriarty, but several UMR researchers have been spending a lot of time on the road this fall, presenting their work at various conferences or preparing to do so, and even spurring some conversation among sci-tech bloggers. Here's what's been happening, or is about to happen, with some UMR faculty hitting the lecture circuit:
Rogers suggests officials focus on preparing for a magnitude 6.6 to 6.8 quake -- not the 8.0 "big one" series of temblors in 1811-1812 that shook the Midwest and rang church bells in Boston. A 6.6- to 6.8-magnitude quake, similar to what took place in 1895 (illustrated at right and compared to the 6.7 earthquake in L.A. a decade ago), is more likely and could do significant damage, Rogers says.
Today couldn’t have been a more perfect day. We woke to the warm shining sun in a cloudless sky. We began the day with visits to the inland lakes, We visited Storr’s Lake, first, where we got to see mangroves and stromatolites. We also visited Pigeon Creek, Big Salt Pond and Little Salt Pond.
Visions staffers may get weekends off, but our intrepid bloggers on the Bahamian island of San Salvador -- Amanda Conigliaro, Tara Gosnell and Scott Perdue -- all stayed busy over the weekend writing about their latest academic adventures on that island. First up is Gosnell, an English and technical communication major who, along with her fellow English students, spent time on Friday teaching similes and metaphors to some local schoolchildren.
UMR's minerals collection dates back to the turn of the century (the one where it turned from the 1800s to the 1900s), when, following the close of the World's Fair in St. Louis, many of the minerals that had been exhibited were shipped to Rolla. UMR now has the largest university minerals collection in Missouri. Housed in McNutt Hall, the minerals museum has approximately 3,500 specimens from all over the world. The collection includes gold, diamonds and meteorites. 
