Constraints on the location of the Late Quaternary Reelfoot and New Madrid North Faults in the northern New Madrid seismic zone, central United States

摘要

The New Madrid North and Reelfoot Faults are believed to have ruptured during large-magnitude earthquakes on 23 January and 7 February 1812, respectively, based on the regional distribution of liquefaction, contemporary New Madrid seismic zone microseismicity, and historical accounts of earthquake-related damage. Although the location of the Reelfoot Fault generally is well constrained between the Kentucky Bend of the Mississippi River in Kentucky and the southeastern margin of the Mississippi Valley in Tennessee, the northern extent of the fault remains enigmatic in southeastern Missouri. This is equally true of the New Madrid North Fault, which has a postulated location based primarily on contemporary microseismicity and rupture scenario models of the 1811-1812 earthquake sequence. In this paper, we synthesize existing unpublished and published data with recently acquired subsurface and geomorphic information to clarify the locations of the Reelfoot and New Madrid North Faults in southeastern Missouri.