Monday, January 23, 2017

The Second Great Quake, and some weekend shaking

On this day 205 years ago the second great New Madrid earthquake occurred.  This one was perceived at a distance to be a distinct earthquake. Closer to the New Madrid area observers probably had a harder time discerning it among the aftershocks of the December 16th earthquake.  Due to this eyewitness accounts of this quake are more sparse than for the first quake in December.  If the earthquakes had ceased with this one it would have been notable. But due to the later February 7th earthquake this event tends to get lost in the shuffle of quakes and their aftershocks.

As a note in modern seismicity we had a couple of earthquakes in extreme Western Kentucky this weekend.  The first one occurred Saturday near Wickliffe,  Kentucky with a magnitude of 2.7.  A second one occurred on Sunday near Bardwell, Kentucky with a magnitude of 2.5   So earthquakes new and old are of interest in the New Madrid seismic zone.  For more information on the January 23, 1812 earthquake visitNew Madrid Compendium.  For the weekend earthquakes visit for the Saturday quake Wickliffe, Kentucky earthquake, and for the Sunday quake visit Bardwell, Kentucky earthquake