Cliff Cave just south of St. Louis. That Muddy Mississippi was
looking low but beautiful. Photo by Lisa A. Johnson. Scientists
predict a Haiti-magnitude earthquake along the New Madrid fault
during the next 50 years. The fault runs under the Mississippi
Delta, one of the poorest parts of the US. By Suzi Parker,
Correspondent, The Christian Science Monitor One of the
strongest series of earthquakes ever to hit the United States
happened not in Alaska or along California's San Andreas fault,
but in southeast Missouri along the Mississippi River. In 1811
and 1812, the New Madrid fault zone that zig zags through five
states shook so violently that it shifted furniture in
Washington, D.C., and rang church bells in Boston. The series of
temblors changed the course of the Mississippi River near
Memphis, and historical accounts claim the river even flowed
backward briefly. Geologists consider the New Madrid fault line
a major seismic zone and predict that an earthquake roughly the
magnitude of the Haiti earthquake (7