All the while this region is home to 15 nuclear reactors. As if that’s not enough, there’s also a little known factor that will really make your hair stand on end.
The fault zone is criss-crossed with major gas and oil pipelines delivering these volatile energy sources all over the United States.
An earthquake in the middle of the country, along the precarious New Madrid fault, could have enormous fiscal and energy consequences. Virtually every natural gas pipeline in the nation is built over that fault. You’ll see the explosion reflected off the moon.
Yes, four of the five major natural-gas pipelines come right through the soup in New Madrid, the soft alluvial soil. They carry gas all the way to Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.
If the earthquake happened during the winter, you’re going to have major-league problems on your hands. Try to explain to somebody why you cannot heat a nursing home or keep a hospital warm.
NEW MADRID really scares me. If New Madrid goes on the scale that we think it will … we are going to impede the entire country.
All of the commerce, all of the oil and gas pipelines, everything comes right the central U.S. You drop the bridges across the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and the river locks and you’ve frozen this country.
No one knows when the next “big one” will arrive.
The New Madrid Seismic Zone is buried 100-200 feet underground and is primarily monitored by using seismographs to detect the frequency of micro-quakes along the fault.
Seismologist also look at historical data, both recorded by people and in the soil and rock itself, to calculate the frequency of past major quakes along the fault.
The current best guess is that the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) is about 30 years overdue for a magnitude 6.3 earthquake — one strong enough to damage ordinary buildings and overturn heavy furniture. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake, as serious as the 1811-12 series, may arrive by 2069.
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