Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Assessing The Felt Reports Of The 1811-12 New Madrid Earthquakes In The Central United States, Ron Street, John D. Kiefer, Jerry L. Raisor

Report of Investigations--KGS

The damage and felt reports describing the New Madrid, Mo., earthquakes of 1811-12 need to be assessed in the historical context in which the events occurred. Log cabins in the frontier settlements along the lower Ohio River Valley, for example, were built with a rudimentary form of base isolation, and their response to the earthquakes should not be evaluated in the same way that a modern wood-frame or brick building would be.

Also, inaccuracies have crept into the databases used for estimating the epicenters and magnitudes of the earthquakes. For example, the magnitude of the December 16, 1811, earthquake has …