No Apocalyptic Earthquake for Midwest Fault Lines

A new book argues that there are no scientific evidence to suggest that the apocalyptic scenarios concerning a massive earthquake being triggered by fault lines in the American Midwest are true.

According to the publication, the warnings being circulated at this point about a massive tremor lurking just around the corner are just a bunch of over-hyped rumors.

While it is true that fault lines in the New Madrid Seismic Zone did rupture some two centuries ago, casing devastating quakes, a Northwestern University experts believes that the possibility of that happening again soon is very remote.

Seth Stein, a Northwestern geologist, published his rebuttal of the rumors in a book called Disaster Deferred: How New Science Is Changing Our View of Earthquake Hazards in the Midwest(Columbia University Press, October 2010).

The expert says that the book is specifically designed to address the concerns of people living near or around the fault line, and the way this is achieved is by explaining the physics behind earthquake formation in this particular fault line system.

The hype that now surrounds the New Madrid system originated back in 1990, when a prediction said that a new, massive tremor was about to strike in the area. When that didn't happen, fears were not quelled, but continued to loom.

“It's said that the 1811 and 1812 earthquakes were the biggest in US history, which isn't true. Or that they rang church bells in Boston, which isn't true. And that another huge earthquake is on the way, which there's no reason to believe,” the author writes.

After investigating this seismic system for more than two decades, the expert writes that, in all likelihood, the next quake that will originate here will take place hundreds, or thousands of years from now.

“We, of course, can't say there will never be another New Madrid earthquake like the ones in 1811 and 1812, but there's no sign of one coming. The next could be thousands of years or tens of thousands of years in the future,” the expert argues in his book.

This is not to say that the area is not active. Each year, more than 200 small earthquakes shake the ground here, and occasionally a tremor stronger than magnitude 4.0 strikes the area.

But the possibility of a magnitude 6 or 7 temblor occurring in this area in the near future is very remote, the expert concludes, quoted by Our Amazing Planet.