Image: USGSĭecember 16 marks the anniversary of the first of three major quakes to strike the United States during the winter of 1811-1812, a violent time in seismological history of the region that scientists say will be repeated again. The Mississippi River can be seen moving down the middle of this satellite image. The red circle is drawn around the heart of the New Madrid Seismic Zone. White dots are the oldest earthquakes while yellow is newer orange is the newest. This map charts out earthquakes from the last 7 days, with each dot reflecting a unique epicenter. However, this region is also home to a catastrophic earthquake in the 1800’s that scientists believe could be repeated at some point in the future. This region has seen a large number of earthquakes in recent weeks fortunately, most have been small, with no damage reported nor expected. While stronger than the earlier Arkansas earthquake, it was too weak to cause any damage or injuries. One resident used the “Did you feel it?” tool in the early morning hours to report some weak shaking to USGS at the time of the earthquake. The Missouri earthquake struck Pemiscot County which is south of New Madrid County, Missouri. The epicenter of the somewhat stronger 2.1 magnitude event struck just north and east of downtown Steele, Missouri. The second earthquake struck 14 minutes later at 3:27 am near the Mississippi River in southeastern Missouri. The Faulkner county earthquake, just north of Little Rock, was too weak to generate “Did you feel it?” responses by the community at the USGS website. That 1.7 magnitude event struck at a depth of only 0.9 km. The first earthquake struck at 3:13 am this morning just outside of Enola, Arkansas. 58 earthquakes have rattled the region in the last 30 days, some strong or loud enough to be felt or heard by residents, according to USGS. Image: USGSĪ pair of relatively weak earthquakes rattled portions of northern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri today, where dozens of seismic events have unfolded in recent weeks near the heart of an area known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, or NMSZ for short. The epicenter of today’s earthquakes appear as an orange dot inside a set of concentric circles.
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