Look at a map of faults and fault lines in the US, and much of it will look pretty much like you’d expect, assuming you’ve ever heard of the San Andreas Fault. Basically, there’s nothing between the East Coast and, oh, Denver or so, and then suddenly the country turns into a mess of seismic activity and potential.There’s one anomaly to that rule: a big old hotspot right in between the Ozarks and Appalachia. Known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, it’s been home to some of the largest and most destructive quakes in US history – and nobody really understands why.What is the New Madrid Seismic Zone?It was two a.m., on December 16, 1811, when the first earthquake struck the frontier town of New Madrid, Louisiana Territory. It was “a violent shock of an earthquake,” wrote New Madridian Eliza Bryan in 1816, “accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor, causing total darkness.”They’re generally referred to as three earthquakes, but the truth is that it was more like one three-month-long biblical apocalypse. The initial quake – a magnitude 7.0 mother – was felt across an area of nearly a million square miles, or 3.5 Texes; the ground was felt shaking as far away as Canada, church bells rang from the motion in Boston, and chimneys were brought down in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was followed by aftershocks and weaker earthquakes until, on January 23, the area was hit by a second major quake of magnitude 7.3; after that, the “earth was in continual agitation, visibly waving as a gentle sea,” Bryan wrote, until on February 7, the strongest earthquake yet – magnitude 7.5 – hit the town again.People and animals alike panicked and fled as the ground was “horribly torn to pieces,” Bryan recounted, with great fissures “vomit[ing] forth” black, coal-like substances mixed with sand and water. The Mississippi River rose up “fifteen or twenty feet perpendicularly,” she wrote, and appeared temporarily to reverse course; it was literally rerouted so much that it created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, and the banks of the river were covered in dead fish and wrecked boats.In the end, the whole town had sunk about 15 feet lower than before – there are even photos of trees that have grown a second set of roots to deal with the new ground level – and the whole area was dealing with aftershocks for years afterward. It was, Bryan admitted, “a scene, the description of which would require the most sublimely fanciful imagination.”Tree with a double set of roots, a result of the New Madrid earthquakes.USGS/Public domainAnd that’s only the most recent spate of quakes. Paleoseismology – the study of ancient earthquakes via evidence in the geological record – has revealed a pattern of seismic activity in the region: we now know that the New Madrid region was devastated not only in 1811, but also in about 1450 CE, 900 CE, 300 CE, and 2350 BCE.Not only are earthquakes fairly regular in the area, then, but they’re also startlingly consistent. By studying liquefaction features – the size and composition of sand blows; their locations and distributions, and so on – researchers have been able to conclude that these historical earthquakes were strikingly similar to the events of 1811-12: they were “similar in location and magnitude to the 1811-1812 earthquakes,” the United States Geological Survey (USGS) notes, and likely “also […] were earthquake sequences.”Overall, the USGS explains, “the New Madrid seismic zone generated magnitude 7 to 8 earthquakes about every 500 years during the past 1,200 years.” And yes: it’ll probably happen again; it’ll probably be bad; and it probably won’t be alone.And here’s the thing: none of that really makes any sense at all.Why do earthquakes happen?We like to think we know what causes an earthquake. “Earthquakes result from a ‘stick-slip’ motion, where rocks ‘stick’ along fault planes while stress accumulates until a ‘slip’ occurs – a bit like pulling on a stuck door until it suddenly opens,” wrote Åke Fagereng, a researcher in Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, in a 2020 article for The Conversation.“This slip also releases energy as the seismic waves that, in large magnitude earthquakes, create substantial damage.”This is why earthquakes are so commonplace in places like Alaska, Southern California, Japan, and everywhere else in the so-called “Ring of Fire” – the infamous tectonic belt around the Pacific Ocean inside of which some 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes occur. It’s why places like Iran and Afghanistan see so much seismic activity – the countries are sat on top of multiple fault lines, with the Indian and Arabian tectonic plates subducting under the Eurasian plates.All of which raises the question… why would Missouri be in trouble?What’s going on in Missouri?If earthquakes are caused by the interaction of various tectonic plates – what the heck is going on at the New Madrid Seismic Zone?“It’s a big mystery,” USGS geologist Eugene Schweig told Wired in 2008. “New Madrid is about as far from a plate boundary as you can get.” While they’re rare, earthquakes within tectonic plate interiors do happen – but why is a question that geologists are struggling with even today. “It is generally agreed that these intraplate earthquakes are caused by reactivation of old rifts,” explained Attreyee Ghosh, a professor from the Centre for Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, in a 2020 article for the European Geosciences Union. “However, what causes this reactivation is not well-understood.”For the New Madrid Seismic Zone in particular, there’s a whole slew of potential answers, Ghosh noted: suggestions include “glacio-isostatic adjustment, weakening of mantle due to rifting or arrival of a plume, ridge push, gravitational body forces, large scale mantle convection as well as dynamic topography,” to name but a few. Her own preferred theory features long wavelength tectonic stresses, with intraplate earthquakes effectively being activated by massive forces propagated in from the tectonic boundary.Whatever is reactivating these rifts, it’s clear that the New Madrid Seismic Zone is the result of old, old geology. Researchers have located three fault lines in the region which were formed about 500 million years ago – “a time when the North American plate tried and failed to pull itself apart,” explains Undark. But precisely why these fault lines are still active – or newly reactivated – is a mystery. And that’s a big problem.See, without a clear mechanism for what’s causing the quakes, researchers are at a loss for ways to predict them. Being located smack dab in the middle of a tectonic plate makes normal methods all but moot: it’s only within the last decade that they were even able to confirm geological movement in the area at all, let alone figure out how much tectonic stress is being held in the ground – or where the breaking point may be.“We know from research and past events that we’re capable of having large earthquakes in this area again, and at any time,” Brian Blake, executive director of the Central United States Earthquake Consortium, told Undark. “Our job, regardless of the mechanism that causes earthquakes, is to prepare.”How much danger is the New Madrid Seismic Zone in?So, how worried should Missourians – and Tennesseans, Arkansans, Kentuckians, and Illinoisans – be? Well, it depends on what precisely you’re asking.The actual risk of an earthquake, especially one similar in severity to the three that battered the state back in the 1800s? That’s probably not very high: “we would estimate a 25 – 40 percent chance of a magnitude 6.0 and greater earthquake in the next 50 years,” notes the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, “and about a 7 – 10 percent probability of a repeat of the 1811-1812 earthquakes in the same time period.”In fact, it may even be lower than that. The extent to which the New Madrid Seismic Zone has been touted as a potential disaster area – by the media, and even by other scientists – has been criticized by some experts. There are questions over the methodology used by the USGS, which is based on probabilistic techniques; deterministic or scenario analyses, which are favored by geologists at the University of Kentucky, result in a lower risk profile, and – at least, according to the methods’ proponents – a more accurate one.That said, earthquakes are notoriously difficult to predict – and even a very low risk of seismic activity can only tell half the true story. Alaska gets more earthquakes than any other state in the union, including some of the highest-magnitude ever recorded – but in 2018, when Anchorage was hit by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, there was only minimal damage and zero deaths.How did they manage that? It’s simple: in a state where seismic activity is commonplace, earthquake preparedness is built into everyday life. Schools regularly drill students on what to do in a quake; buildings must adhere to strict codes and standards; family homes get kitted out with emergency provisions and exit strategies in preparation for disaster.Not so in New Madrid. The eponymous Seismic Zone covers several major cities – Memphis, Tennessee; St Louis, Missouri; Little Rock, Arkansas, each with populations in the hundreds of thousands – and “we know that a lot of people are living in buildings that are not ready for a big earthquake,” Jeff Briggs, the earthquake program manager for the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency, told Undark.And while efforts are afoot to shore up the area’s earthquake awareness, it’s slow going. Funding is low, and legislation is lacking; thanks to their rareness, earthquakes in general are simply “not as front of mind” as other natural disasters, Briggs explained.Nevertheless, he added, when the next major earthquake hits – and all evidence suggests that it will – “it’s going to be the biggest natural disaster this state has ever experienced.”

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The university may be forced to end the inconsistent and biased enforcement of its free-speech policies as revealed in the aftermath of October 7.

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RedState Weekly Briefing: George's Meltdown, Tim's Tailspin, Kamala's Chaos

If you missed the first part of The Widow in the Woods, you can find it here. Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Before we get into today’s story, I have some exciting news: the entire book The Widow in the Woods is finished and now available on Amazon! What you have been reading here is my first draft. The paperback and Kindle versions have been fleshed out to contain 247 pages, 22 chapters and an epilogue (that you can only get in the published book) of where some of the characters end up a year later. If you have enjoyed the story so far, I hope you will grab your copy today and if you already have a copy, please consider leaving a five star review on Amazon. Now, onto today’s story… Lexie and Grace sat together on the parlor sofa, whispering in the glow of the single candle on the mantle. “I’m free,” Lexie said with a satisfied smile. “I killed him.” “Yes,” Grace nodded. Lexie leaned against Grace, who stroked the girl’s hair soothingly. Soon, she had drifted off into a peaceful slumber. Grace could not sleep so easily. Her mind was racing to solve the problem of the two remaining Hill brothers. She had to finish them off before they realized that Christopher was gone. She thought about her husband. What would James have done in her shoes?Well, that wasn’t a very realistic question, because the Hills and Beth would have never gotten near the house if James had been there. That line of thinking was counterproductive, though. She needed to process information as James would have done and formulate a plan. Rick was weak and she could give him something to make him sleep. Jon was the bigger threat. She had to take care of Jon, preferably not inside her home. Suddenly, it came to her. She knew what James would have done. She smiled when the girl with her head in Grace’s lap gave a gentle snore, then she leaned back to get some rest, satisfied that she had a workable plan. … The next day, Grace stationed herself on the porch swing, from which she had an excellent view of the trailhead. She practiced for a moment, resting her gun on her bad arm and holding it with the good one. Once she was convinced she could hold it steady and make her shot, she put a round in the chamber and laid her apron over the gun on the seat. She began working on some embroidery, swinging gently and humming as she did. Lexie was still asleep on the sofa and Grace expected that after all she’d been through, the girl would sleep for quite some time. Nightshade seemed to sense the safety and hopped up on the end of the swing, where a faded floral pillow awaited a feline nap. Her next conundrum was what to do with the bodies. She really wasn’t up to digging a hole to bury them. She also wasn’t going to let them rot in her yard – this place was her haven. When a friendly crow alit on the railing of her porch, Grace smiled. Now she knew. … All day long, Grace sat on the swing. Lexie brought her a sandwich at lunch, and refreshed her glass of lemonade throughout the day. Each time, Grace shooed the girl back inside. Lexie didn’t need to see further death. In the early afternoon, she assigned Lexie to task of keeping Rick company with a game of cards. She was to stick with the story that both Christopher and Jon were out searching for Beth. A bit later, she explained to Lexie how to give Rick a strong dose of laudanum so he’d sleep through the night. Afterward, she could hear Lexie’s footsteps, pacing back and forth down the pine-floored hallway. Grace was on edge. She’d waited all day to put her plan into motion and now she wasn’t sure if Jon was going to make it back. She was wondering whether she should call it a night as the sun was dwindling behind the trees and dusk began to fall, when she heard rustling on the trail. Was it a forest creature or was it Jon? She didn’t have to wait long until he appeared. She sat quietly on her porch swing. With no lights on, she figured that her distance from the trailhead would make her hardly noticeable. She was wrong. He did see her. When she realized that he’d seen her, Grace gave a friendly wave. Jon waved back. It seemed to take forever for him to stride toward the house. Grace spoke softly. “Did you have any luck? Did you find Beth? I bet you’re hungry. We have a lovely surprise waiting for you.” Her voice was so quiet that Jon strained to hear her. “What did you say?” he yelled. Grace spoke even more softly and repeated what she’d just said, looking down at her lap so Jon couldn’t read her lips. Just a little bit closer, she thought. As Jon approached, looking annoyed that she wouldn’t speak up, she slipped her hand onto the butt of her Glock. She’d already chambered a round, and it was ready to go. Just a few more steps. “I can’t hear what you —–” Jon began, then stopped in horror as he found himself looking down the barrel of Grace’s gun. “Wait! My brother will kill you! Wait –” His plea was cut off as his face disappeared into a haze of red mist. Grace’s ears rang from the gunshot, and she hoped that Rick didn’t awaken. She couldn’t hear Lexie’s footsteps in the hall anymore from the ringing in her ears and was surprised when she appeared beside Grace, looking frantic. They stood there, together, looking at the gory sight of Jon’s body, completely faceless. It could have been anyone, or a creature from a nightmare. Finally, Grace broke the silence. “Please go get the wheelbarrow, dear girl.” About Daisy Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews. Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter. The post The Widow in the Woods: Part 13 appeared first on The Organic Prepper.