America Is Slowly Splitting Apart

In the winter of 1811, the middle of America broke — three giant earthquakes, forests sank, a new lake was born, and witnesses swore the Mississippi ran backward. More than a thousand miles from any plate boundary. Here are 20 places where the United States is stretching, cracking and pulling apart — counting down to the one pattern that explains them all. Chapters: 0:00 The winter the middle of America broke 0:51 20 · The state that learned to shake (Oklahoma) 1:45 19 · The quake up to a third of America felt (Virginia, 2011) 2:38 18 · The morning New York shook (2024) 3:30 17 · The night Charleston fell (1886) 4:10 16 · The cliffs across from Manhattan 4:52 15 · The ocean that keeps growing 5:39 14 · The lake born in an earthquake 6:12 13 · The river that ran backward 7:06 12 · The day America almost split in two 8:01 11 · The rift under Albuquerque 8:46 10 · The hotspot America is sliding over 9:39 9 · The night a mountain fell into a river 10:23 8 · The fault under Salt Lake City 11:14 7 · The state with 300 mountain ranges 12:01 6 · Two cities drifting apart 12:54 5 · The earthquake Japan wrote down 13:54 4 · The slide 14:28 3 · The peninsula that left 15:17 2 · The crack nobody has heard of 16:12 1 · The seams 17:06 The whole countdown in one breath Have you ever felt an earthquake somewhere you thought was safe? Tell me where in the comments. Sources: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NOAA, National Park Service, Oklahoma Geological Survey, Utah Geological Survey, peer-reviewed research. Some maps and cross-sections are schematic and not to scale.