LEGACY OF A QUAKE SCARE: MORE AWARENESS, RESEARCH

To the Editor:

The absurdity of last year's fiasco might have taught the public ~~that we can and cannot do in terms of predicting specific times and places for an earthquake. We are still unable to predict a time and place for an earthquake. A prediction such as that cannot be made now and may never be possible. Also let's hope that in the future the public might be more skeptical when someone such as Iben Browning comes around making such statements.

In terms of science, current research may be putting a different light on the New Madrid Fault itself. In the early 1800s, it produced one of the biggest series of earthquakes to ever hit the continental United States. But it has been relatively quiet since then, and some seismologists are wondering just how high the danger is when there is little evidence for any significant seismic activity before the big events. They are wondering if those quakes might have been a very rare occurrence.

There are no definitive answers, just intriguing possibilities. A number of promising areas are being explored. Scientists are making excavations and aerial studies to see if they can find fault traces along the zone to get a better picture of what actually happened in 1811 and 1812. Others are trying to determine the long-term motion of land on opposite sides of the fault. In Cali~fornia, we know one side of the San Andreas Fault is moving at two inches per year, which shows a lot of seismic activity. But at New Madrid, which, unlike the San Andreas is not visible above ground, we know little about the overall motion.

Douglas A. Wiens

Associate Professor, Earth and

Planetary Sciences

Washington University

St. Louis