Could New Madrid bring down the Arch?

[vivian maxine]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... ce+News%29

It's a bit of news about why New Madrid - not at a tectonic plate boundary - was able to be so violent 200 years ago. And, could it happen again?

[Watson]

On a somewhat related note, given you have a tenuously stable area of southern Missouri. It has just been confirmed that the practice of fracking by the oil and gas industry, is directly responsible for an earthquake in northern British Columbia, and suspected in another. It is deliberately destabilizing what could be a fragile balance of the earths crust. Imagine if a small fracking quake in Texas tipped the balance to set of Yellowstone or even southern Missouri.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

[vivian maxine]

On a somewhat related note, given you have a tenuously stable area of southern Missouri. It has just been confirmed that the practice of fracking by the oil and gas industry, is directly responsible for an earthquake in northern British Columbia, and suspected in another. It is deliberately destabilizing what could be a fragile balance of the earths crust. Imagine if a small fracking quake in Texas tipped the balance to set of Yellowstone or even southern Missouri.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

Well, I've been sympathizing with my Texas friend who had fracking just down the road from her. Never thought she'd send it up here to us. You are right, though, in what you say. I believe there was also one in Pennsylvania where it was decided fracking was the cause of some problem. And some of that water is said to be leaching into rivers and lakes.

No fracking in Missouri that I know of. Don't think we have oil. We have rocks. :-)

[Watson]

No, but if you have the geological instabilities mentioned in the OP, then there could be a small event somewhere and a chain of events, and the next thing you know the Mississippi is flowing backwards.

[vivian maxine]

So far as I know, Watson, that's the only instability we have but it's a big one. The 1812 one was felt far eastward across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Then we had a small one in the 80s or 90s that was felt from New Madrid to Kansas City. Not sure where else.

Wouldn't that be something to see - the Mississippi flowing backward. It's such a quiet, lazy-looking stream when it is behaving itself. The Missouri seems livelier.

[Watson]

With all the happenings that would cause the river to flow upstream, I don't think many people would want to see it. And if it is such a lazy looking stream, would you even notice?

[vivian maxine]

With all the happenings that would cause the river to flow upstream, I don't think many people would want to see it. And if it is such a lazy looking stream, would you even notice?

it's only lazy looking when it is quietly flowing along, causing no trouble. Hit it with an earthquake? Or a flood? Another story.