The most powerful earthquakes known to have hit the central U.S. were the New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812. Now, a new study suggests that the next 'Big One' in the region may not occur along the New Madrid fault, but somewhere else.
The new research, published in the journal
Lithosphere, examined earthquake records in China. Earthquakes have been recorded and described in China for some 2,000 years, but have never occurred twice in the same place.
"In North China, where large earthquakes occur relatively frequently, not a single one repeated on the same fault segment in the past 2,000 years," said
Mian Liu, a professor of geological sciences at University of Missouri and one of the authors of the new study. "So we need to look at the 'big picture' of interacting faults, rather than focusing only on the faults where large earthquakes occurred in the recent past."
Different faults form a web of interacting stresses. A large earthquake on one fault can increase stress on a different fault. Important faults can remain dormant for years then jolt awake in a brief period of violent activity.
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