Will a catastrophic earthquake strike someday on the New Madrid Seismic Zone?
Without a doubt.
The only question is when. Experts don’t expect another big one for at least a hundred years, but no one knows for sure and that’s what makes seismologists and emergency planners nervous when they talk about the NMSZ.
The ground is still shaking. The fault averages about two hundred measurable earthquakes a year, twenty a month. Every year and a half, it produces a shock of magnitude 4 or greater on the Richter scale. Next to California, the New Madrid Fault in America’s heartland is the most dangerous earthquake zone in the United States.
The use of a nuclear device to turn off an expected earthquake has been seriously suggested, especially as a way of “destraining” the sites for nuclear power plants or big dams. The literature on earthquakes produced by underground nuclear explosions is extensive.