Thursday, September 12, 2019

3.7 Quake Hits New Madrid Fault In Arkansas


M3.7 earthquake hits the New Madrid Fault Zone in Arkansas - More than 2500 reports from Missouri and Arkansas



A 3.7 magnitude earthquake rumbled parts of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas early Thursday, Sept. 12.

The quake hit at 1:42 a.m. near Gassville, Arkansas, around the Missouri border.


About 4 hours later, the USGS received more than 2500 reports of people feeling the quake, including areas as far north as Springfield, Mo., as far east as West Plains, Mo., and near Mountain Home, Ark. 

The New Madrid Fault Zone

Way back in 1811 and 1812, a series of over 1,000 earthquakes rocked the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Memphis. One was so powerful that it caused the river to run backwards for a few hours.
Today, scientists say that the 150-mile-long New Madrid Seismic Zone has a terrifying 40% chance to blast in the next few decades, impacting 7 states – Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi – with 715,000 buildings damaged and 2.6 millions of people left without power.
The New Madrid Seismic Zone, sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, is a major active seismic zone in the southern and midwestern United States. As shown in the map above, it stretches to the southwest from New Madrid, Missouri.
Earthquakes that occur in the New Madrid Seismic Zone potentially threaten parts of 8 US states: Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Akansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi.
The New Madrid fault system was responsible for the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes, an intense intraplate earthquake series that began with an initial earthquake of moment magnitude 7.5–7.9 on December 16, 1811, and was followed by a moment magnitude 7.4 aftershock on the same day.
They remain the most powerful earthquakes to hit the contiguous United States east of the Rocky Mountains in recorded history.

The New Madrid fault has an impact zone ten times as big as its more famous San Andreas cousin and most residents from all of the bordering states on the fault are totally unprepared, and the infrastructure is decades overdue for some quakeproofing. See te image below:

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