October 06, 2005

New Madrid Tremor

Chris Wage noticed a tiny tremor along the New Madrid Fault this past Sunday.

Here's an interesting map showing the tremors to hit for the past several months. Most are in the 1-2 on the Richter scale, but there's always activity there.

I'm just wondering when the "big one" will hit again.

This is encouraging:

In the past three centuries, major earthquakes outside of California and Alaska generally occurred in sparsely-settled areas, and damage and fatalities were largely minimal. But some took place in areas that have since been heavily built up. Among them are three earthquakes that occurred in 1811 and 1812 near New Madrid, MO. They are among the Great earthquakes of known history, affecting the topography more than any other earthquake on the North American continent. Judging from their effects, they were of a magnitude of 8.0 or higher on the Richter Scale. They were felt over the entire United States outside of the Pacific coast. Large areas sank into the earth, new lakes were formed, the course of the Mississippi River was changed, and forests were destroyed over an area of 150,000 acres. Many houses at New Madrid were thrown down. "Houses, gardens, and fields were swallowed up" one source notes. But fatalities and damage were low, because the area was sparsely settled then.

The probability for an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or greater is significant in the near future, with a 50% chance by the year 2000 and a 90% chance by the year 2040. A quake with a magnitude equal to that of the 1811- 1812 quakes could result in great loss of life and property damage in the billions of dollars. Scientists believe we could be overdue for a large earthquake and through research and public awareness may be able to prevent such losses.

Comments:

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do you know of any projectsion of what that would do to the memphis area?

I have been casually looking around, but have not seen anything.

Posted by: cube at October 9, 2005 06:47 PM

http://www.ceri.memphis.edu/public/survival.shtml

that might have some info,

Posted by: cube at October 11, 2005 07:13 PM