The New Madrid Earthquake
by George Bailey
Missouri is home to the largest earthquake ever recorded in the contiguous United States! The New Madrid Earthquake is second only to the Alaskan Good Friday Earthquake. Named after its location in the New Madrid Seismic Zone near New Madrid, Missouri (A bit of a drive from Branson MO), the earthquake was preceded by three other considerable earthquakes, two of which occurred on December 16th, 1811, the third on January 23rd, 1812. The destruction wrought by these was sufficient to drive a large number of settlers away from the town of New Madrid. The earthquake now known as The New Madrid Earthquake took place on February 7th, 1812. These earthquakes are believed to have been felt strongly across a range of 50,000 square miles and moderately across one million square miles. Their magnitude on the Richter Scale is estimated at 8.0. They caused church bells to ring in Boston, Massachusetts, created the Kentucky Bend in the Mississippi River and even caused part of it to run backwards for a time! The earthquakes are attributed to a fault zone called the Reelfoot Rift and ascribed to seismic activity anywhere from five to twenty-five km below the crust of the earth.