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New Madrid Fault

February 22, 2012 by · Comments Off on New Madrid Fault 

New Madrid Fault, A 4.0 earthquake within the New Madrid Seismic Zone gently shook southeast Missouri Tuesday morning at 3:58 a.m. The quake was centered about nine miles east of Sikeston, Missouri, and no damage or injuries were reported.

Just ten days ago, engineers, scientists, emergency first responders and earthquake history fans gathered at Saint Louis University for an event commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the mighty New Madrid Earthquake of 1811 and 1812.

That quake, estimated to be an eight on the Richter scale, wrought devastation throughout the New Madrid Zone of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.

This is the quake that famously made the Mississippi River run backward — the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2010 was magnitude ten, by way of comparison.

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