Earthquake Expert Says Midwest Risk Is Minimal
(CBS) -- What regions of the U.S. are at risk for a major earthquake? WBBM's Lisa Fielding talked to an earthquake expert about fault lines and risks here in America.
Earthquake expert Paul Stoddard of Northern Illinois University says the U.S. is full of fault lines but while the West Coast gets much of the attention for the risks, the New Madrid fault in the Midwest is also a seismically active area.
"100 years ago or so, we had huge earthquakes in one winter that rang church bells in Boston, woke up Thomas Jefferson, you've heard all the stories. That really provides the biggest risk is a major earthquake in the New Madrid but it's not something to lose sleep over. Generally earthquake risks in this part of the world are minimal. You might feel one but even if you felt one, it wouldn't be large enough to do any damage but it's always nice to be prepared just in case."
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources says there is a 7 to 10 percent chance that a magnitude-7.5 to -8.0 earthquake could occur in this region and that the area is already "about 30 years overdue" for a magnitude-6.3 earthquake based on the historic record of seismic activity.
The West Coast experiences far more earthquakes than the East Coast, and 81 percent of the world's largest earthquakes occur along the Pacific Rim.