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What Causes Midcontinent Quakes?The 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes were among the largest the world has ever seen away from active plate boundaries. These were estimated to be between magnitudes 7 and 8, so at least as powerful as the Haiti earthquake experienced this January. In an opinion piece on the Chicago Tribune website, Susan Hough, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, warns residents in the midcontinent that earthquakes can happen, even far away from places like California or the Caribbean. What concerns seismologists, she writes, is that in the heartland, “earthquake waves travel especially efficiently in the midcontinent.” Hough says that although earthquakes cause less damage in countries where houses and other buildings are better built than in impoverished areas, they cost a lot in terms of damage. “A 2008 Federal Emergency Management Agency study estimated a staggering $100 billion price tag for a worst-case magnitude 7,7 New Madrid quake,” she writes. “Recall that the more modest 1994 Northridge earthquake caused tens of billions of dollars of property damage, even at magnitude 6.7, even in California.” To read the full article, please click here:
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