New Mexico is Stretching

According to the ABQ Journal and Fox News, the state is stretching by about 1 inch every 40 years. This is not much, but they don't see this happening in landlocked states - it's always the coastal regions.

"The stretching of the surface of the Earth is commonly documented at the edge of continental plates, where the jigsaw puzzle pieces that make up the surface of the planet jostle and collide, forming mountains, or move under or over each other. In places like California, the effect can be easy to see, the Journal said.

But the effect in continental interiors -- on states not near the edge of those plates -- was a new one, the scientists said. Whether an upwelling in the gooey mantle that lies beneath the crust or a sag in the plates themselves, what exactly drives the growth remains a mystery."

So let's hope the volcanoes outside my house aren't just playing dead...