Access

News and Views

Nature 462, 42-43 (5 November 2009) | doi:10.1038/462042a; Published online 4 November 2009

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

Earth science: Lasting earthquake legacy

Tom Parsons1

Top

Earthquakes occur within continental tectonic plates as well as at plate boundaries. Do clusters of such mid-plate events constitute zones of continuing hazard, or are they aftershocks of long-past earthquakes?

Early on the morning of 16 December 1811, an earthquake of about magnitude 7 shook the centre of the United States around a small town on the Mississippi called New Madrid. By 7 February 1812, it had triggered three more shocks of similar magnitude1.

  1. Tom Parsons is at the US Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
    Email: tparsons@usgs.gov

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.