These maps cover Maricopa, Pinal, Pima and Cochise counties. The show known and previously reported earth fissures at a 1:250,000 scale suitable for planning purposes. The AZGS is currently working on higher resolution mapping of earth fissures that will be displayed on 1:24,000 scale. These detailed maps will be released as they are completed.
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Earth Fissures in the News
Arizona State Geologist Lee Allison blogged about some recent news coverage of earth fissures as a result of the AZGS’ release of the first of their earth fissure maps. Here is what he said:
The East Valley Tribune published an extensive set of news features on earth fissures in their Sunday edition, including timeline, maps, videos, and an animation of how fissures form.
KPHO, CBS channel 5 in Phoenix, also has a nice video segment with great aerial shots of the 2005 fissure in Chandler Heights that triggered the recent interest in this hazard.
Here is the video he was referring to.
Earth Fissures on Phoenix PBS Affiliate “Horizon” Show
Phoenix Arizona’s PBS affiliate, KAET-TV, Channel 8 had a segment on Earth Fissures on their May 30th episode of "Horizons". They interviewed one resident of the Chandler Heights area that has problems with earth fissures on her property. They also interviewed Todd Shippman with the AZGS in the field. Todd is the project manager for the AZGS’ earth fissure mapping program. The bulk of the program was an interview with Lee Allison, the head of the AZGS and the Arizona State Geologist. He explains the earth fissure mapping program, and the planning scale maps that were just released this week on the AZGS Website. Click through for embedded video of the segment from the Horizon Website. You can also download it as a podcast if you wish. (Photo courtesy of NCS Consultants, LLC.)