Yes, another post about earthquakes. It was just a few days ago, but you gotta go where the science takes you. This map, made by the USGS, shows how likely an earthquake is in the next 50 years for the entire nation. No surprises that the Pacific Coast is very much at risk, and I'm also not surprised by the fairly significant danger zone centered on the southeast corner of Missouri. It's not typical earthquake country, but it has happened, and the USGS is predicting it could very easily happen in the next 50 years.
What surprised me the most about that map was that the coast of South Carolina was at the same risk level as the Pacific Coast and the central Mississippi River. I had no idea they were worried about earthquakes there, but a brief internet search has given the answer. The New Madrid earthquake in 1811 was the worst earthquake outside of a fault zone at an 8 on the Mercalli scale. There was an earthquake that measured at around a 7 in Charleston in 1886, which I had never heard of. It's suspected that the faults are old leftovers from the breakup of Pangaea. Other surprising high areas of risk were the mountains of Tennessee and upstate New York. The earthquakes out here on the East Coast are of course not going to be as severe since there is no active fault line, but the buildings are not earthquake-resistant like they are in the West, so a smaller quake can do just as much, if not even more damage.
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