Sudden Swarm of Quakes Measured Near Missouri’s New Madrid Fault

After a period of relative quiet, there's a sudden swarm of quakes that have been recorded along the New Madrid Fault on Missouri's border.

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UPDATE: There's now a 2.1 earthquake being reported in southern Illinois by the USGS.

ORIGINAL STORY: If you pay attention to earthquakes, you likely saw that there were almost no measurable quakes along the New Madrid Fault for days. Now, the USGS is reporting a sudden mini-swarm of a half dozen quakes in the past day along.

I want to be clear that there is no reason for alarm as all of the quakes so far have been relatively tiny with the largest only measuring 2.5 on the Richter Scale.

Earthquakes happen along the New Madrid Fault all the time. As we shared recently, there have been more than 175 New Madrid area quakes halfway through 2023 alone. But, we pay attention especially to swarms as experts now estimate a major quake could cause more than a billion dollar in damage which is double what was previously thought. The concern is that a swarm could signal a bigger quake about to happen, but earthquake science is still a field where there's no way to accurately anticipate or predict a big event. Perhaps someday there will be.

There's an interesting read that the USGS shared involving what a major 7.7 quake along the New Madrid Fault would do to Missouri and surrounding states. It's the worst-case scenario earthquake event that we hope we never experience in our lifetime.

If you're interested in earthquakes and/or the New Madrid Fault, you can check out the latest earthquakes which are updated nearly in real-time via the USGS website.