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Which fault system was responsible for the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes?
What is New Madrid seismic zone - Quaternary Fault localities?
How many earthquakes did the New Madrid seismic zone cause?
What is the New Madrid seismic zone?
The Reelfoot rift is identified today as a subsurface system of fractures and faults in the earth's crust. New Madrid seismicity is spatially associated with the Reelfoot rift and may be produced by movement on old faults in response to compressive stress related to plate motions.
The New Madrid fault system was responsible for the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes and has the potential to produce large earthquakes in the future. Since 1812, frequent smaller earthquakes have been recorded in the area. [1]
History. The NMSZ is famous for a series of three major earthquakes (believed to have been magnitude 7.0 or larger) which occurred in the two month period between Dec. 16, 1811, and Feb. 7, 1812.
Each New Madrid earthquake had a magnitude of 7.5 or greater, making them three of the most powerful in the continental United States and shaking an area ten times larger than that affected by...
Mar 29, 2024 · New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–12, series of three large earthquakes that occurred near New Madrid, Missouri, between December 1811 and February 1812. There were thousands of aftershocks, of which 1,874 were large enough to be felt in Louisville, Kentucky, about 190 miles (300 km) away.
- John P. Rafferty
The New Madrid seismic zone is a source of continuing small and moderate earthquakes, which attest to the high stress in the region and indicate that the processes that produced the large earthquakes over the previous 4,500 years, are still operating.
The causes of the New Madrid earthquakes, however, are not well understood, and a number of hypotheses have been posited to explain their occurrence so far from a tectonic plate boundary. Some Earth scientists suggest that the faulting of the NMSZ is the result of an underground hot spot , a section of Earth’s upper mantle that upwells to ...
