This week is the 213th anniversary of the start of what was probably the most frightening event for those who resided in southeast Missouri, western Tennessee, western Kentucky, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas. The Missouri State Archives provides a series of the largest series of earthquakes that have ever rocked the United States.
The first shock was about 2 a.m. on the night of December 16th, 1811 and was very hard, shaking down log houses, chimneys and more. It was followed at intervals from half an hour to an hour apart by comparatively slight shocks, until about 7 o’clock the next morning, when a rumbling noise was heard in the west, not unlike distant thunder, and in an instant the earth began to totter and shake so that no persons were able to stand or walk.
This lasted a minute, then the earth was observed to be rolling in waves of a few feet in height, with a visible depression between. These swells burst, throwing up large volumes of water, sand and a species of charcoal, which by its peculiar odor was thought to be Sulphur. Where these swells burst, large, wide and long, fissures were left running north and south parallel with each other for miles. I have seen some four or five miles in length, four and one-half feet deep on average, and about ten feet wide.”
This was the description Godfrey Lesieur gave as an eyewitness to the first of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes. Modern seismologists believe the initial earthquake began at 2:15 a.m. in present-day northeast Arkansas with a magnitude between 7.2 to 8.2. Tremors were reportedly felt in Canada, New Orleans, Detroit, Boston and Washington D.C., covering 1 million square miles. Lesieur’s account of the earthquake is from the History of Dunklin County, Missouri 1845 to 1895.
Now quakes and aftershocks would continue in the New Madrid seismic zone into January and February with a smaller 4.0 earthquake occurring in New Madrid, Missouri on November 9th, 1812. Casualties for this disaster are unknown. According to a 1912 report, “Several lives were lost on the river. Many people were left homeless and thousands of acres of land were rendered untillable.”
In 1974 instruments were installed in the seismic zone to monitor current activity. In the past 50 years, over 4,000 earthquakes in the zone have been recorded with an average of one per year being substantial enough to be felt.
A series of small earthquakes were just recorded along the New Madrid Seismic Zone. On December 9th, six small rumblers were recorded. The smallest registered at 1.8 in magnitude and the largest a 3.0. These series of small earthquakes are not uncommon to the area and happen pretty frequently. The earthquake zone has settled down this last week. The last quake recorded was a 2.6 rumbler on December 11th. On average, around 200 small quakes are recorded each year in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.
