What cities would be affected by the New Madrid Fault?
The area includes major cities such as Memphis, Tennessee, St. Louis, Missouri, Little Rock, Arkansas and Evansville, Indiana. Every year hundreds of small earthquakes occur in the NMSZ, however, most are too small to be felt by humans and can only be detected by sensitive instruments.
Where does the New Madrid Fault start and end?
The New Madrid Fault extends approximately 120 miles southward from the area of Charleston, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, through Mew Madrid and Caruthersville, following Interstate 55 to Blytheville, then to Marked Tree Arkansas.
What states are mostly affected by the New Madrid Fault?
Louis, Missouri, and were felt as far away as Hartford, Connecticut, Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In the New Madrid region, the earthquakes dramatically affected the landscape.
Where does the New Madrid fault line lie?
The New Madrid seismic zone is located in the northern part of what has been called the Mississippi embayment. The Mississippi embayment is a broad trough filled with marine sedimentary rocks about 50-100 millions years old and river sediments less than 5 millions years old.
Will the New Madrid Fault erupt?
NEW MADRID, Mo. — The last major earthquakes along the fault happened in December 1811 and in 1812, but University of Arkansas professor Gregory Dumond said scientists can’t predict when the next one will happen. “We can give you a percent chance of it maybe happening, but that’s about it,” he said in a 2019 interview.
When was the last time the New Madrid Fault was active?
February 7, 1812
It was December 16, 1811, and it was the first of at least three very large (M7 or greater) earthquakes and thousands of aftershocks to rock the region that winter, with the last occurring on February 7, 1812.
Will the New Madrid earthquake happen again?
Paleoseismic evidence collected in recent decades indicates that strong “earthquake triplets” similar in magnitude to the 1811-12 temblors have occurred approximately every 500 years along the New Madrid fault and are likely to happen again.