Missouri Earthquake Alert: 3 Quakes Strike Fault Zone

If you follow seismic activity in Missouri, you may have noticed a slight uptick in quakes along the New Madrid Fault over the past several weeks. That hit a crescendo Saturday morning as there have been a rapid fire series of 3 quakes in just the past 24 hours in that region.

As I was doing my daily check of the USGS earthquake site, my eyes were immediately drawn to southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Their map revealed 3 New Madrid Fault quakes in just the past 24 hours all confirmed by USGS seismologists.

None of these quakes would be considered anything other than minor. The largest of the three tremors was a 2.2 magnitude shaker near Howardville, Missouri in the boot heel and it wasn't reportedly felt by anyone.

Why do these 3 quakes along the southern Missouri border matter?

The good news is they probably don't, but they happened as I was researching a theory that has just been shared about minor quakes in Missouri being a sign of buildup of pressure along the plate boundary possibly leading to a major quake event. I'm not convinced it's correct, but the timing of this trio of New Madrid quakes was eerie considering what I just heard yesterday. File this away (for now) as just an interesting start to the weekend seismically-speaking in southern Missouri and hope it doesn't result in anything else.