The New Madrid Earthquakes

8.53 Write a narrative with supporting text describing the effects of the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-12 on the land and people of

Tennessee. (G, H, TN)

Bell Ringer: What might this map represent? Why do you think so?

The U.S. Geological Survey’s seismic hazard map is used to set building codes and plan for emergencies. 

(Map: Guilbert Gates; Source: USGS National Seismic Hazard Maps, 2008)

The Great Midwest Earthquake of 1811By Elizabeth RuschSMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2011

At 2:15 a.m. on December 16, 1811, residents of the frontier town of New Madrid, in what is now Missouri, were jolted from their beds by a violent earthquake. The ground heaved and pitched, hurling furniture, snapping trees and destroying barns and homesteads. The shaking rang church bells in Charleston, South Carolina, and toppled chimneys as far as Cincinnati, Ohio. “The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro, not knowing where to go, or what to do—the cries of the fowls and beasts of every species—the cracking of trees falling...formed a scene truly horrible,” wrote one resident.As people were starting to rebuild that winter, two more major quakes struck, on January 23 and February 7. Each New Madrid earthquake had a magnitude of 7.5 or greater, making them three of the most powerful in the continental United States and shaking an area ten times larger than that affected by the magnitude 7.8 San Francisco earthquake of 1906.The Midwest was sparsely populated, and deaths were few. But 8-year-old Godfrey Lesieur saw the ground “rolling in waves.” Michael Braunm observed the river suddenly rise up “like a great loaf of bread to the height of many feet.” Sections of riverbed below the Mississippi rose so high that part of the river ran backward. Thousands of fissures ripped open fields, and geysers burst from the earth, spewing sand, water, mud and coal high into the air.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-great-midwest-earthquake-of-1811-46342/#cFVJcLUV5XYAJSlq.99

Isoseismal map for the Arkansas earthquake of December 16,1811, 08:15 UTC (first of the 1811-1812 New Madrid series).

Source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1811-1812_iso.php

QUESTIONS:

1) What do you notice?

2) What is surprising about this map?

3) Why do the lines only go eastward and not west?

Eyewitness Accounts of the EarthquakesUS Geological Survey • http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1811_eyewitn

ess.php

Tennessee State Library and Archives• http://www.tennessee.gov/tsla/exhibits/disasters/newmadrid.htm

What if the earthquake happened today?• Government Flyer

• Autozone HQ Memphis’s most earthquake-resistant building

Student Reflection

Write your own journal entry as a person living during the 1811-1812 earthquake. What would you see? Feel? Hear? Etc…Use supporting evidence from the primary sources, articles, or photos.ORImagine the earthquake hit Tennessee today. Write your own journal entry describing how the earthquake would impact your life. What would you see? Feel? Hear? Etc…