Nearly 400 Quakes Along the New Madrid Fault in Missouri in 2022
It's been a busy year along the New Madrid Fault in Missouri. At last count, there have already been nearly 400 measurable quakes in this seismically-active region of America.
Since I am a self-proclaimed earth science nut, I did this search just out of curiosity. I wondered out loud how many New Madrid Fault quakes there have been near Missouri over the last year. The short answer is a lot. The long answer according to the USGS is 389 measurable quakes as of this writing.
It wasn't easy to come up with this number. I went to the USGS site and set up a custom report for only the New Madrid Fault area and nothing else then told their website to calculate all of the measurable quakes since January 1, 2022. Here's the resulting map count.
What's interesting about the past 12 months of New Madrid quakes is many have been large enough to be felt by those nearby which isn't the norm since there are thousands of quakes we never hear about.
The strangest part of earthquakes in Missouri for 2022 are the ones that didn't happen along the New Madrid Fault including a couple later this year near Mark Twain Lake that were large enough to feel. That's not a region where I'm aware of any faults, so I'll be keeping my eyes on that area for future events.
You can check out the custom report I made for yourself on the USGS site if you're interested in the Earth that sometimes shakes beneath us.