Already 63 Quakes in 2024 Along New Madrid Fault Zone in Missouri

It's quietly been a busy year along the New Madrid Fault Zone in Missouri. While there have fortunately not been many quakes big enough to garner much attention, the USGS says there have already been at least 63 felt quakes in the region in 2024.

If you check the USGS shake map daily, you'll often see a quake or two near the New Madrid Fault Zone in southern Missouri. For example, there was a tiny 1.4 quake just today near Marston, Missouri. It's when you step back and look at what's happened for the first 3 months of 2024 you begin to see how active the region has been.

Here's what the map looks like for the New Madrid Fault Zone so far in 2024 according to the USGS.

The good news is there's been nothing significant so far this year with the largest so far only amounting to a couple of 2.7's.

That's actually quite a lot of activity as the New Madrid Fault Zone began 2024 extremely quiet...almost too quiet.

There's zero reason for alarm, but it's actually a good thing when earthquake faults release energy. I would probably feel better about where we're at in 2024 in Missouri if there had been just a little bit more activity.

You might find it interesting that the New Madrid Fault has had more than 8,500 measurable quakes dating back to the year 2000. Let's hope this relatively quiet start to 2024 isn't the fault zone loading up energy for a major quake. That would be a very bad day (and week) for all of us as the USGS says Missouri is very unprepared for a big seismic event.