A quaky future
Massive earthquakes that shook the American midwest in the last century were attributed to movements in the New Madrid fault zone in southern Missouri. Reportedly, there are innumerable such weak zones which can cause earthquakes iQmidcontinental US, according to Stephen Marshak and Timothy Paulsen of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Urbana. Comparing the similarity in the overall pattern of faulting in the area, the two suggest that the chances of the earth giving an encore to the 19th century quakes cannot be ruled out (New Scientist, Vo1150, No 2025).