San Andreas Won't be the Next Big One

[Old Rocks]

Lewis & Clark Expedition

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson guided a splendid piece of foreign diplomacy through the U.S. Senate: the purchase of Louisiana territory from France. After the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was made, Jefferson initiated an exploration of the newly purchased land and the territory beyond the "great rock mountains" in the West.
.......................................................................................................
With journals in hand, Lewis, Clark, and the other members of the Expedition returned to St. Louis by September 1806 to report their findings to Jefferson.

By 1812, the Corps of Discovery was six years past. Silly Billy, when are you going to stop pulling nonsense out of your ass?

 

[Old Rocks]

John Colter: The First Mountain Man

Colter cheated death a third time in April 1810, when a band of Blackfeet attacked another party of trappers led by Colter. Five trappers were killed, but once again, Colter lived to tell the tale. Sensing perhaps that his luck was about to run out, Colter reportedly returned to the fort and announced that he was leaving the country for good in two days — “if God will only forgive me this time and let me off.”

Colter made good on his promise. In the company of a man named William Bryan, he embarked by canoe down the Missouri River two days later and paddled all the way back to St. Louis. He never returned to the western wilderness.

As it turned out, Colter was not to survive by many years his emergence from the wilderness. Although he married and settled down, acute jaundice claimed his life only three years later, in 1813. The man who had survived cold, starvation, and numerous hostile Indian attacks succumbed to disease at about age 38.

Colter was in Missouri in 1812, not anywhere near Yellowstone. I do hope that this clears up the issue of Silly Billy's credibility for all.

 

[Billy_Bob]

And yet his journals say different.. whom to believe, you or the mans journals?

 

[WheelieAddict]

New Madrid fault is an interesting topic. Different theories about it's future behavior. Some think a new eruption is due in the same area. Others think the fault is dying out as one further north is emerging.

 

[Indofred]

The mentioned likely death rate was 100,000, but that sounds a little low when you consider the nuclear power stations in the probably damage zone.
A massive quake would probably destroy them totally, leading to far greater problems than the Japanese disaster. The number killed could be in the millions.

 

[Indofred]

 

[MaryL]

The New Madrid fault pales in comparison to the SUPER volcano in Yellowstone, supposed to blow any day now. Will destroy most of continental US. What are we gonna do, hide under a refrigerator? C'est la vie.

 

[Old Rocks]

And yet his journals say different.. whom to believe, you or the mans journals?

Well now, everything that I have read said that Colter never kept any journals. In fact, chances are that he did not write at all, was illiterate as many of the woodsmen of that period were. However, I would love to be proven wrong, that he was capable of keeping and journal, and did. That would be very interesting, and, since he was in Missouri in 1812, he would have experianced that quake.

So, Silly Billy, a link to restore your credibility. Of course, if you do not have such, then, once again, you have proven that you have no credibility.

 

[Old Rocks]

The New Madrid fault pales in comparison to the SUPER volcano in Yellowstone, supposed to blow any day now. Will destroy most of continental US. What are we gonna do, hide under a refrigerator? C'est la vie.

Yellowstone is one of the most intensively monitored areas in the world for seismic data. I doubt that an eruption could occur there without a few months warning. However, we still have little knowledge about predicting quakes.

 

[Old Rocks]

The Earthquake Potential of the New Madrid Seismic Zone

The Earthquake Potential of the New Madrid Seismic Zone

1. Martitia P. Tuttle,
2. Eugene S. Schweig,
3. John D. Sims,
4. Robert H. Lafferty,
5. Lorraine W. Wolf and
6. Marion L. Haynes

+Author Affiliations

1. M. Tuttle & Associates
   128 Tibbetts Lane
   Georgetown, Maine 04548
   (M.P.T.)
   
2. U.S. Geological Survey and Center for Earthquake Research
   and Information
   3876 Central Ave., Ste. 2
   Memphis, Tennessee 38152-3050
   (E.S.S.)
   
3. John Sims & Associates
   Rt. 3, Box 427
   Harper's Ferry, West Virginia 25425
   (J.D.S.)
   
4. Mid-Continental Research Associates
   P. O. Box 728
   Springdale, Arkansas 72765
   (R.H.L.)
   
5. Department of Geology
   Auburn University
   Auburn, Alabama 36849
   (L.W.W.)
   
6. Arkansas Archeological Survey
   Blytheville Station
   Blytheville, Arkansas 72315
   (M.L.H.)

Abstract
The fault system responsible for New Madrid seismicity has generated temporally clustered very large earthquakes in A.D. 900 ± 100 years and A.D. 1450 ± 150 years as well as in 1811–1812. Given the uncertainties in dating liquefaction features, the time between the past three New Madrid events may be as short as 200 years and as long as 800 years, with an average of 500 years. This advance in understanding the Late Holocene history of the New Madrid seismic zone and thus, the contemporary tectonic behavior of the associated fault system was made through studies of hundreds of earthquake-induced liquefaction features at more than 250 sites across the New Madrid region. We have found evidence that prehistoric sand blows, like those that formed during the 1811–1812 earthquakes, are probably compound structures resulting from multiple earthquakes closely clustered in time or earthquake sequences. From the spatial distribution and size of sand blows and their sedimentary units, we infer the source zones and estimate the magnitudes of earthquakes within each sequence and thereby characterize the detailed behavior of the fault system. It appears that fault rupture was complex and that the central branch of the seismic zone produced very large earthquakes during the A.D. 900 and A.D. 1450 events as well as in 1811–1812. On the basis of a minimum recurrence rate of 200 years, we are now entering the period during which the next 1811–1812-type event could occur.

So, not likely in the near future, but possible.