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America at Risk: Fault Lines in the U.S. – ABC News. Did you know we have 4 active earthquake fault lines in the US? I didn’t. We’ve all heard of the San Andreas fault line in California, but like the other 3, they have been quiet for a couple of hundred years. And that is the problem, seismologists say. They know a major earthquake could happen at any time. We’re overdue.
The New Madrid fault line is the biggest in the US. It runs 120 miles through 5 states from St. Louis to Memphis crossing the Mississippi in 3 places. 200 years ago, a 7.5 earthquake hit here followed by 2000 aftershocks, some registering as 8.0 for the next 5 months! If a major quake hit there now, it would affect 15 million people in 7 different states! New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have the Ramapo fault. Today…8 million people live along this fault.
Living in Texas, I’m near “Tornado Alley” and never been around or experienced an earthquake. Seeing the devastation in Japan and the resulting tsunami that has affected major areas of our globe, the world seems to have gotten a bit smaller than before. We are all connected and what happens to one of us, affects others in bigger ways than we ever thought about. Just something to think about!
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