New Madrid: It's Our Fault

In 1811, an earthquake struck near St. Louis. It was so powerful that it altered the course of the Mississippi River - and rang church bells in Boston. Scientists have finally figured out what might have caused a series of devastating earthquakes that struck the Midwest nearly 200 years ago at a set of faults that has confused geologists for a long time. Now, Allessandro Forte of the Université du Québec à Montréal and his colleagues have arrived at a more dramatic mechanism—an ancient, giant slab of Earth called the Farallon slab that started its descent under the West Coast 70 million years ago and now is causing mayhem and deep mantle flow 360 miles beneath the Mississippi Valley where it effectively pulls the crust down an entire kilometer (.62 miles). "This remarkable localization of flow in the mantle below New Madrid, originating so deep below the surface, was completely unrecognized prior to our work," Forte told LiveScience. FULL ARTICLE at LIVESCIENCE... RELATED: In the winter of 1811-12, the central Mississippi Valley was struck by three of the most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history. Even today, this region has more earthquakes than any other part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Government agencies, universities, and private organizations are working to increase awareness of the earthquake threat and to reduce loss of life and property in future shocks. The 400 terrified residents in the town of New Madrid (Missouri) were abruptly awakened by violent shaking and a tremendous roar. It was December 16, 1811, and a powerful earthquake had just struck. This was the first of three magnitude-8 earthquakes and thousands of aftershocks to rock the region that winter. FULL ARTICLE from U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY...