#Why Midwest Earthquakes
While watching a news program the other night (I think it was Nightline), they
brought up the fact that earthquakes occur other places besides the West Coast.
They mentioned the Midwest. I recall reading about the "tremendous" New Madrid
earthquake in the early 1800s. Fortunately, that regions was thinly populated
back then, so there were not a large number of fatalities.
However, this raises a question. Since the Pacific Coast quakes occur in a
region where the oceanic plate is "subducting" the continental plate, it's
obvious that there would be quakes. But, how can you have quakes in the middle
of a continent, where there are not confrontations between two separate crustal
plates? Answers, anyone?
BTW, I'm not a geologist, just an amateur scientist.
Leland in (non-seismic) Houston