The New Madrid Seismic Zone

I wrote a thing about touring this place with geologists a few years back: https://idlewords.com/2015/07/confronting_new_madrid.htm

I grew up around here. In 1990 a scientist (Dr. Browning) predicted there would be a major earthquake on a certain day and most parents kept their kids home from school. My dad, a geophysicist, said the guy was a quack so I had to goto school. It was practically empty that day.

I live in Madrid, Spain, a zone not prone to any earthquakes and the title startled me quite a bit.

When I was a freshman at Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T) this guy, Iben Browning, predicted that there would be a major earthquake on the New Madrid fault line in December. I think a few schools even closed for the day in the area because some parents were so freaked out about it. It was just the craziest scene that people believed that this nut job could actually predict an earthquake.

The last memorable earthquake in the Midwest was the 5.2 "tremor" of 2008 [0] just north of the New Madrid fault. It was felt as far away as Georgia and Nebraska. I recall a scientist quoted as saying that the area "rung like a bell" because it occurred in the stable interior craton. It caused some minor damage like a few bricks falling off a couple buildings. I was working in a 2nd story building and felt the the upper cabinet of my office vibrate a little.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Illinois_earthquake

As someone with extended family living in SE Missouri, I can say this is VERY well known to them. I've seen a coffee table book one of them had with black/white pictures of some of the destruction from the quake there that spawned Reelfoot Lake, and it was enough to give one pause.

I'm just across the border from Chicago in Indiana.... and if New Madrid goes off, there is a small but non-zero chance my house will fall off its piers. (We have no basement/foundation) Mitigating this risk is something I can't begin to afford.

Pronounced MAD-rid.

All my daydreams are disasters.