Seaholm and the Hills – Austin, Texas
I mentioned Seaholm yesterday, the old power plant that was converted into offices. You can see a better view of it here. For many years, ever since I moved to Austin in the early 90s, it was out of commission and off-limits. It was not too long ago when the redevelopment project completed. Eight years ago, I got special permission to go inside to photograph the interior shell. Oh, how the area has changed since then.
You can also see the view out west towards the Texas Hill Country. The sightly undulating horizon may not look much from here, but yes, there are some considerable hills out there. Austin is situated in the middle of an old fault line. To the east, flat prairie that stretches north into the heartland where buffalo once roamed. To the west, the beginning of the Texas Hill Country, a large area of hills with rocky, marginal, but a tree-covered land that dominates the center of Texas.
When I lived on the East Coast, before my move to Austin, I thought all of Texas was a flat dusty desert with tumbleweeds and cactus. As you can see, Central Texas is very different. There are rivers, lakes, and hills with a decent amount of greenery. It certainly gets hot, but it’s hardly a desert.
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4 thoughts on “Seaholm and the Hills”
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atmtx photo blog 
Wait till you see what happens next. By that I mean: there are no old fault lines. Just fault lines which are currently quiet. Witness the New Madrid fault, which changed the course of the Mississippi River. Google “New Madrid earthquake” for some entertaining reading. I’d recommend the article in The Atlantic Magazine which that search produces.
Of course anything is possible, but I heard this area of Texas is one of the most geographically stable in the US. That’s why the Superconducting Super Collider was proposed to be built in this area.
Take a look at this map from the USGS:
https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/frequency-damaging-earthquake-shaking-around-us
Undoubtedly true. Guess I was thinking in terms of geological time, in which the 10,000 year horizon of the USGS map is but a gnat blink. On the other hand, if my wife and I do find our way back to the west coast next year it will probably be just in time for the Cascadia subduction to gobble down the western half of Northern California, Oregon and Washington, belching some of the remnant to a location near Anchorage.
If we are talking geological time, all bets are off. Of course, ultimately, our planet will be incinerated when the sun becomes a gas giant.