Is the New Madrid Seismic Zone at risk for a large earthquake?
The New Madrid Seismic Zone presents a difficult problem. We know that large earthquakes have happened in the past. If earthquakes of that magnitude happened today, the damage and recovery would be difficult. Here is the problem: how big were those historical earthquakes actually? How likely are they to happen again? How should the cost of retrofitting be weighed against the predicted cost of an large earthquake? Scientists and policy makers have different training. Scientists are trained to assess the recurrence interval and estimate the ground motion of hypothetical events, while policy makers are trained to assess normative problems (i.e. given a seismic risk at some level, what should we do about it?) In the data analyses you just completed, you became familiar with earthquake catalogs, including their strengths and limitations. You practiced looking at frequency-magnitude diagrams and you used this data to estimate the recurrence interval for earthquakes of various sizes. In fact,
Related Questions
- What is the potential for a New Madrid Seismic Zone earthquake causing a secondary reaction on an adjoining fault such as the Wabash Valley Fault?
- After a major earthquake in the New Madrid or Wabash Valley seismic zone, what changes to the landscape would we most likely see?
- Did deglaciation trigger intraplate seismicity in the New Madrid seismic zone?
