Should Fixing Aardbevingschade Take 20 Steps?
The New Madrid Seismic Zone
Even though the West Coast and Alaska generally has the best aardbevingschade, the potential for moderate-to-large earthquakes exist in the Midwest where three of the biggest historical earthquakes occurred in the winter of 1811-1812 over the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) in southeastern Missouri. The three main earthquakes of moment magnitude 7.0-8.0 occurred on December 16, 1811; January 23, 1812; and February 7, 1812.
The NMSZ stretches from just the west of Memphis in Tennessee into southern Illinois, and includes three fault segments: the northeast and the southwest segments which are strike-slip faults, and the Reelfoot or central segment which really is a thrust fault. The probability of a New Madrid earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or greater occurring within the next 50 years is 25-40%, while a repeat of the 1811-1812 earthquakes is 7-10% in line with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI) of the University of Memphis.
The Region of Potential Impact
Earthquakes in the Central and Eastern United States (CEUS) are less frequent than in the Western United States (WUS). However, they affect much larger areas because of the regional geology being different east and west of the Rocky Mountains, where the CEUS is a more stable region in which the vitality released from a sizable earthquake is transmitted into the surrounding regions more proficiently, while the vitality is relatively quickly absorbed in the WUS. For comparison, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake of magnitude 7.8 was felt 350 miles away in the middle of Nevada, while church bells rang in Boston, Massachusetts, from the New Madrid earthquake of December 1811 of magnitude about 7.5, which will be 1,000 miles away. Therefore, a moderate-to-large earthquake activity in the NMSZ is capable of causing widespread damage over a sizable region in the Midwest. The region of potential impact is comprised of eight states: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.
