So this past week my wife and I have put an offer into a house in Beaumont, TX where we will be moving for her job. We are very excited about this next step in our lives, but before we go through and finalize the purchase, diligent work needs to be done. The work I am talking about of course is the inspection of the house. We are having a hired professional inspect the house for any major repairs that may need to be done. As a geologist I am really interested in the ground the foundation and house is built on.
This past week I went on an internet adventure trying to find geologic maps of the Beaumont area as well as a fault map. The last thing I want is a house we buy to be located on a fault that could potentially cause damage. The internet did not let me down. I found a couple very cool sites that showed the geology of the entire state of Texas! I will share one of those sites with you here: http://txpub.usgs.gov/DSS/texasgeology/.
What I like about this site is you can zoom in and out really far and the geology is overlying a map of Texas so it is easier to see road and town names. In the top right corner of the website you can also turn on and off different features such as rock units, members, and faults. What doesn't thrill me about this site is the lack of identification of the units. The units are all abbreviated so it is difficult to know what they mean. What you can do is Google those abbreviations and you should get an answer to what units are.
This next site is similar in that they have scanned individual areas of Texas. I like this site because they also include the legends for the individual maps. http://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/aquifer/GAT/.
The answer to my initial question about is my potential house going to be on faults appears to be no! Now of course you shouldn't substitute a professional with looking at a map for yourself to identity potential problems. What I believe these maps can do are help you get an idea if you do live near identified faults that you may want to get more information on.
I want to discuss just a little bit about the faulting in Houston. From what I have gathered the faults of Houston are thought to have developed with the formation of the Gulf of Mexico. The faults are considered growth faults, which is a type of normal fault that develops because of extensional forces (pulling apart). The down-dropped side of the faults are towards the basin (Gulf of Mexico). These faults are not like the faults in California that cause major earthquakes. These faults do however move at a rate of <1 to 3 cm a year depending on the fault and location.
If you are interested in reading more about faults in the Houston area follow these links:
No comments:
Post a Comment