Water thrown up by an earthquake was lukewarm. The phenomena is called "seismoluminescence." Lights flashed from the ground, caused by quartz crystals being squeezed. They are petroleum that has been solidified, or "petroliferous nodules." Small pellets up to golf ball sized tar balls are found in sand boils and fissures. Locals call it "The Beach." Other, much smaller, sand boils are found throughout the area. It is 1.4 miles long and 136 acres in extent, located in the Bootheel of Missouri, about eight miles west of Hayti, Missouri. The world's largest sand boil was created by the New Madrid earthquake. Some earthquake fissures were as long as five miles. There were "missing people" who were most likely swallowed up by the earth. Getting Over CracksĪs the general area experienced more than 2,000 earthquakes in five months, people discovered that most of crevices opening up during an earthquake ran from north to south, and when the earth began moving, they would chop down trees in an east- west direction and hold on using the tree as a bridge. Boatmen on flatboats actually survived this experience and lived to tell the tale. The force of the land upheaval 15 miles south of New Madrid created Reelfoot Lake, drowned the inhabitants of an Indian village turned the river against itself to flow backwards devastated thousands of acres of virgin forest and created two temporary waterfalls in the Mississippi. The Mississippi Ran BackwardsĪfter the February 7 earthquake, boatmen reported that the Mississippi actually ran backwards for several hours. Three of the earthquakes are on the list of America's top earthquakes: the first one on December 16, 1811, a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter scale the second on January 23, 1812, at 7.8 and the third on February 7, 1812, at as much as 8.8 magnitude. In the known history of the world, no other earthquakes have lasted so long or produced so much evidence of damage as the New Madrid earthquakes. From Decemthrough March of 1812 there were over 2,000 earthquakes in the central Midwest, and between 6,000-10,000 earthquakes in the Bootheel of Missouri where New Madrid is located near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. President James Madison and his wife Dolly felt them in the White House. They occurred in the central Mississippi Valley, but were felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Montreal, and Washington D.C. The New Madrid earthquakes were the biggest earthquakes in American history.
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