The Struggle to Understand Why Earthquakes Happen in America's Heartland

Zoom in/Top: A view of the downtown Memphis skyline, including the earthquake-resistant Hernando De Soto Bridge. Memphis is located about 40 miles from a fault line in the earthquake-prone New Madrid system.

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The first earthquake struck while the city was still asleep. At about 2 a.m. on December 16, 1811, New Madrid, a small frontier settlement of 400 people on land now in Missouri, was awakened by a loud crash. Terrified townspeople fled their homes as buildings collapsed and the air filled with the smell of sulfur.

The episode didn’t last long. But worse was yet to come. Nearly two months later, after dozens of aftershocks and another massive earthquake, the fault line running directly under the city broke. Eliza Bryan, a 31-year-old resident, watched in horror as the Mississippi River receded and swept away boats filled with people. In nearby fields, craters of sand rose, and a roar filled the air.

Eventually, the town sank at least 15 feet. Bryan and others spent a year and a half living in makeshift camps waiting out the aftershocks. After four years, the tremors became less frequent. Eventually, the panicked townspeople “began to hope that the aftershocks would stop completely before long,” Bryan wrote in a letter.

But whether Brian's hope will stand the test of time remains an open question.

The USGS released a report in December 2023 detailing the hazards of serious earthquakes across the country. As you might expect on a hazard map, deep red lines run through California and Alaska. But the map also features a large bull’s-eye in the middle of the country — just above New Madrid.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is a 25 to 40 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or greater earthquake hitting the area in the next 50 years, and a 10 percent chance of a repeat of the 1811-12 quake. While the risk is much lower than in California, experts say New Madrid suffers from poor building standards and infrastructure.

The seismic zone has trapped millions of people living in five states—mostly Tennessee and Missouri, but also Kentucky, Illinois and Arkansas—including two major cities, Memphis and St. Louis. Mississippi, Alabama and Indiana have also been designated as areas of concern.

Faced with the prospect of catastrophe, geologists have learned a lot about this strange earthquake hotspot over the past few decades. Yet one mystery remains: why earthquakes happen here in the first place.

That’s a problem, experts say. Without a clear mechanism to explain why New Madrid is so prone to earthquakes, scientists are still struggling to answer some basic questions, like when — or even if — another major quake will hit the area. And in Missouri today, earthquakes aren’t as “prioritized” as other natural disasters, says Jeff Briggs, earthquake program manager for the Missouri Emergency Management Agency.

But when the next big one comes, “it will be the biggest natural disaster this state has ever seen.”

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