Geocachers shaking up New Madrid

Friday, July 18, 2008 11:33 AM CDT

Move over Capt. Jack Sparrow, treasure hunters are dumping paper maps in favor of electronic GPS hunts called geocache. A joint venture between the Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC), State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), and a special museum are putting New Madrid on the map literally and figuratively with “What’s Shaking in New Madrid?”

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers called geocaches anywhere in the world. A typical “cache” is a waterproof container containing a logbook and a “treasure” usually a toy, trinket, or educational item. For fans of the “National Treasure” films, geocaching is similar to letterboxing, which uses references in landmarks to find treasure.

In late June, CUSEC, SEMA and a representative of the University of Memphis joined several New Madrid citizens at a “Historical Museum” (hint) in New Madrid to install a “cache” on the property.

“The opportunity to ‘geocache’ brings SEMA a new, fun, and innovative way to get earthquake information to our citizens. As we get closer to the 200th anniversary of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12, we will be looking at expanding our earthquake awareness efforts,” said Ron M. Reynolds, SEMA Director.

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