Newswise — Midwesterners are more used to tornadoes than earthquakes. But the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake has some experts at the University of Missouri-Rolla thinking about threats associated with the New Madrid fault in addition to those posed by the San Andreas fault. The following researchers are available to discuss earthquake-related issues:
Dr. Genda Chen, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering and an expert in seismic design and retrofitting, can discuss some of the engineering lessons learned from the 1906 San Francisco and 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes. "Historical earthquake events such as the 1906 San Francisco event provide researchers with unique opportunities to understand the nature and extent of damage in buildings and the nation's civil infrastructure," Chen explains. "These events also raise the public awareness on the earthquake hazards and the vulnerability of our built environment. Due to the unpredictability of earthquakes, the effects of seismic hazards on buildings and the nation's civil infrastructure may be greatly reduced through further development and implementation of advanced technologies towards the next-generation intelligent structural systems, using smart dampers and health monitoring devices."
Dr. J. David Rogers, an associate professor of geological engineering at UMR, says Midwestern earthquakes are potentially more powerful than California quakes. According to Rogers, unique geology in the Midwest increases the shaking intensity of earthquakes because seismic energy moves through the dense bedrock at very high speeds, then becomes trapped in soft sediments filling river channels and valleys. Rogers and several graduate students have been modeling synthetic seismic events in the New Madrid region, which produced magnitude 8.0 quakes in 1811 and 1812. Most of their scenarios are modeled after an 1895 earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 that was centered in Charleston, Mo. The preliminary results are sobering, says Rogers, who was recently appointed to Missouri's Seismic Safety Commission by Gov. Matt Blunt. Data indicates ground shaking would be magnified about 600 percent within the flood plain of the Missouri River, a development that would cause most of Missouri's existing long-span bridges to collapse. "You don't even need a really big earthquake to do significant damage in Missouri," Rogers says. "It could happen tomorrow."
Dr. Ronaldo Luna, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering and an expert in geotechnical engineering, can discuss the potential damage and economic losses to the highway transportation system in high seismic risk areas in the Midwest. At last month's American Society of Civil Engineers conference, Luna presented three earthquake scenarios in Missouri and Illinois, including St. Louis, and the related loss estimations under an earthquake event of magnitude 7.0 to 7.7. "Most of the anticipated damage is on river crossings, old structures, and in East St. Louis, in the state of Illinois," Luna says.
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