What If the New Madrid Fault Ruptured Tomorrow? A Minute-by-Minute Scenario

This film is a hypothetical scenario: a repeat of the great New Madrid earthquakes, set tomorrow at two in the morning. In 1811–1812, four great shocks struck the middle of the country in less than two months, rang a church bell in Charleston and sank a river town twelve feet. The fault beneath them lies far from any plate edge, and the ground above it barely moves. What would the same fault do to Memphis and St. Louis now? The scenario in this film is built from the 2009 Mid-America Earthquake Center study for FEMA, the U.S. Geological Survey's shaking models for the zone, and the letters, newspapers and sand blows left by the earthquakes of 1811–1812. IN THIS FILM How did people on the Mississippi record earthquakes with no instruments? What did the river do on the morning of 7 February 1812? How can patches of sand in a cotton field date an earthquake? Why do some scientists think the New Madrid fault may be shutting down? How long would Memphis have before the shaking arrived? What would a repeat do to the bridges, pipelines and hospitals of eight states? Subscribe to Earth in Hindsight for the next film. CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 1:18 The zone under the river 9:04 The night of the sixteenth 18:43 The winter the river changed 27:53 Sand in the cotton fields 37:23 The argument over a quiet fault 46:23 Two in the morning 57:34 The first hour 1:06:57 Morning and after SOURCES Impact of New Madrid Seismic Zone Earthquakes on the Central USA (MAE Center Report 09-03, 2009) — https://mae.cee.illinois.edu/publicat... Summary of 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Sequence (USGS) — https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthqu... Earthquake hazard in the New Madrid Seismic Zone remains a concern (USGS Fact Sheet 2009-3071) — https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3071/ The earthquake potential of the New Madrid seismic zone (Tuttle et al., BSSA, 2002) — https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/700... Modified Mercalli intensities and magnitudes of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes (Hough et al., JGR, 2000) — https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/700... Slow Deformation and Lower Seismic Hazard at the New Madrid Seismic Zone (Newman et al., Science, 1999) — https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.n... Time-Variable Deformation in the New Madrid Seismic Zone (Calais and Stein, Science, 2009) — https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.n... Threat of earthquakes occurring in central United States still alive (USGS, 2014) — https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-ne... East vs West Coast Earthquakes (USGS, 2018) — https://www.usgs.gov/news/east-vs-wes... New Madrid M7.7 simulation (USGS) — https://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/s... Seismic Hazard Maps of Memphis, scenario M7.7 (USGS) — https://earthquake.usgs.gov/static/lf... NMSZ Earthquake Risk (Missouri SEMA) — https://sema.dps.mo.gov/docs/summit/N... Bicentennial of the 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquake Sequence (USGS GIP 118) — https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/118/pdf/GIP... A Lake Born Out of an Earthquake (NASA Earth Observatory, 2023) — https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-... — About this film: Earth in Hindsight makes documentary films about natural disasters. This film contains a hypothetical scenario. The event it imagines has not happened. The scenario is built from the hazard's own record and from the published models and monitoring agencies listed above, and estimates are described as estimates. Archive pictures are captioned on screen. All other pictures are illustrative, a mix of licensed footage and digitally created reconstruction. For the current status of any hazard, consult the agency responsible for monitoring it. FOOTAGE AND IMAGE SOURCES Internet Archive: https://archive.org Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org NASA: https://images.nasa.gov Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov Sentinel-2 cloudless by EOX IT Services (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016): https://s2maps.eu #NewMadridFault #WhatIfEarthquake #EarthquakeDocumentary