By this time most of you are aware of the tragic earthquake that rocked Haiti early Tuesday morning. Hundred of thousands are feared dead as the 7.0 magnitude quake belted the country’s capital Port-au-Prince.
Aftershocks continue to make recovery efforts difficult. The Red Cross is reporting that up to 3 million people may be affected by the largest earthquake in two centuries.
“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” said President René Préval amiss the chaos.
Anyone who would like to help please visit the American Red Cross and help the victims of the disaster by pledging a donation of any denomination.
A recent study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Missouri-Columbia suggest that small earthquakes that frequently shake the central United States may actually be aftershocks from a few large quakes that occurred about 200 years ago.
The New Madrid Earthquakes between December 1811 and February 1812 are some of the strongest seismic events ever recorded in United States history. Since then, the town of New Madrid, Missouri has shaken with earthquakes, such as the 5.2 quake last year.
“There’s no motion across the fault now, so nothing’s going on, but yet there are still small earthquakes there,” said Seth Stein, the study’s lead author and a professor of geological sciences at Northwestern University. “That fault system seems to be shutting down, and if so, we may be looking at maybe thousands of years before we have [large] earthquakes on that particular fault again.”
The paper will be published in the November 5th issue of the journal Nature.
