1960 Valdivia earthquake
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake () or Great Chilean earthquake ("Gran terremoto de Chile") of 22 May is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. Various studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale. It occurred in the afternoon (19:11 GMT, 15:11 local time), and lasted approximately 10 minutes. The resulting tsunami affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia and the Aleutian Islands.
New Madrid Seismic Zone
The first known written record of an earthquake felt in the NMSZ was from a French missionary traveling up the Mississippi with a party of explorers. At 1 pm on Christmas Day 1699, at a site near the present-day location of Memphis, the party was startled by a short period of ground shaking.Hundreds of aftershocks of the 1811–1812 series followed over a period of several years. Aftershocks strong enough to be felt occurred until 1817. The largest earthquakes to have occurred since then were on January 4, 1843, and October 31, 1895, with magnitude estimates of 6.0 and 6.6, respectively. The 1895 had its epicenter near Charleston, Missouri. The quake damaged virtually all the buildings in Charleston, created sand volcanoes by the city, cracked a pier on the Cairo Rail Bridge and toppled chimneys in St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Gadsden, Alabama; and Evansville, Indiana.