Volume 16 , Issue 4

New-Madrid, Missouri

Have you heard stories of the time the Mississippi River ran backwards in 1811? Most of you are too young to remember back to the earthquake of 1811, February 7, and the New-Madrid that were the biggest earthquakes in American history, that occurred in the central Mississippi Valley.


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They were felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Montreal, and Washington D.C. President James Madison and his wife Dolly felt them in the White House. Church bells rang in Boston. From December 6, 1811 through March of 1812 there were over 2,000 earthquakes in the Central Midwest. Between 6,000-10,000 earthquakes in the Bootheel of Missouri where New Madrid is located near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

In all of the known history of the world, no other earthquakes have lasted so long or produced so much evidence of damage as the New Madrid earthquakes. Three of the earthquakes were on the list of America's top earthquakes. The first one on December 16, 1811 (magnitude of 8.1 on Richter scale). The second on January 23, 1812, at 7.8, and the third on February 7, 1812, at 8.8 magnitude.

It was after the February 7, 1812 earthquake, that boatmen reported that the Mississippi actually ran backwards for several hours. The force of the land upheaval 15 miles south of New Madrid created Reelfoot Lake, drowned the inhabitants of an Indian village. It turned the river against itself to flow backwards. It devastated thousands of acres of virgin forest, and created two temporary waterfalls in the Mississippi. Boatmen on flatboats survived this experience and lived to tell the tale.

The general area experienced more than 2,000 earthquakes in five months, and most of the crevices opening up during an earthquake ran from north to south. When the earthquake began moving, they would chop down trees in an east-west direction and hold on using the tree as a bridge. People went missing and were most likely swallowed up by the earth. Some earthquake fissures were as long as five miles.

Remember when the biggest "Sand boils" that were created by the New Madrid earthquake? It was 1.4 miles long and 136 acres in extent, located in the Bootheel of Missouri, about eight miles west of Hayti, Missouri. Locals called it "The Beach." Other, much smaller sand boils were found throughout the area. (Sand boils occur when water under pressure wells up through a bed of sand. The water looks like it is boiling up front he bed of sand.)

Then their were the "seismic tar balls," small pellets up to golf ball sized were found in sand boils and fissures. They are petroleum that had been solidified, or "petroliferous nodules."

It was also a time when lights flashed from the ground, caused by quarz crystals being squeezed. The phenomena was called "seismoluminescence."

There was earthquake smog where the skies turned dark during the earthquakes, and lighted lamps didn't help. The air smelled bad, and it was hard to breathe. It was speculated that it was smog containing dust particles caused by the eruption of warm water into cold air.

Sounds of distant thunder and loud explosions accompanied the earthquakes.

People even reported strange behavior by animals before the earthquakes. They were nervous, excited. Domestic animals became wild, and wild animals became tame. Snakes came out of the ground from hibernation. Flocks of ducks and geese landed near people.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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