Friday, April 18, 2008

New Madrid Fault

I see on Drudge that the New Madrid fault is acting up.

I recall as a kid reading in Reader's Digest personal accounts of the 1811-12 earthquake. Those accounts told of the ground rolling like ocean waves and for a short period the Mississippi flowed to the North. There were also accounts of people felling trees so that they came down perpindicular to the chasms that opened in the ground.

Here is a page at the Tennessee Historical Society with descriptions of the event.

Here is the USGS Photgraphic Library that has some shots taken in 1904 of the way the 1811-12 earthquakes had altered the land.

nanc brings up another interesting geographical hot spot: YellowstoneI've kept a map of Idaho and I finally get to use it! You can see where the North America plate has meandered over this hot spot. Notice how wide it is.

Yellowstone erupting would not be a good thing.

3 comments:

nanc said...

iopian - there's been quite a bit of activity over on the new madrid in the last few years - but none like the earthquake the other day - our cabin's about four hours due west of the mississippi river and i'm sure when the big one comes and we're there, we'll feel it.

that coupled with the ground activity at yellowstone - it'll probably be quite a shaker.

*8]

IOpian said...

Not to mention the earthquake activity off the Oregon coast a short time back.

nanc said...

yes, 600 earthquakes off the coast of oregon within 10 days! holy crappe!

there's a reckoning day coming, iopian.

*;[