Far from any plate edge
Some of America’s biggest quakes happened nowhere near a plate boundary.
The New Madrid zone sits deep inside the North American plate, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest edge. It rides on old, buried faults from an ancient failed rift, which today’s stresses can still reactivate - as they did in a violent winter two centuries ago.
What is happening at New Madrid Seismic Zone
Most big earthquakes happen at plate boundaries. New Madrid is the famous exception: it lies in the stable interior of the continent, along the Reelfoot Rift, a scar left when the crust tried and failed to split apart hundreds of millions of years ago.
Those old faults are still there, and present-day compression can nudge them back to life. In the winter of 1811 to 1812 they produced a sequence of very large quakes felt across much of the eastern United States.
The hazard record here
THE RECORD HERE
A tsunami struck NEW MADRID, MO in 1812.
Live figures from the QuakeMate hazard API - USGS earthquake catalog, NOAA tsunami database and published recurrence estimates. Some fields are blank where there is no record.
Recent earthquakes at New Madrid Seismic Zone
- 2.09 km NNW of Tiptonville, Tennessee1 week ago · 24/07/2026, 06:18:30 · 9 km deep
- 1.77 km ESE of Marston, Missouri1 day ago · 31/07/2026, 08:39:55 · 9 km deep
- 1.93 km E of Marston, Missouri2 weeks ago · 13/07/2026, 22:22:27 · 9 km deep
- 1.96 km NW of Tiptonville, Tennessee3 weeks ago · 10/07/2026, 14:16:52 · 9 km deep
- 1.16 km WNW of Tiptonville, Tennessee3 weeks ago · 10/07/2026, 20:02:33 · 9 km deep
- 1.96 km WNW of Tiptonville, Tennessee1 week ago · 22/07/2026, 17:28:35 · 10 km deep
21 more earthquakes at New Madrid Seismic Zone
Open the QuakeMate app to see every quake here, sorted and mapped - plus real-time alerts when a new one strikes.
Notable events
1811
The first of the great New Madrid shocks struck in December.
1812
Two more major quakes followed within weeks, reshaping the Mississippi.
What scientists watch
The USGS tracks the low but persistent background seismicity and studies how quakes travel unusually far through the stable, ancient crust.
Staying ahead of it
Quakes in stable crust are felt over enormous areas - an alert reaches far more people than the epicentre alone.
Get QuakeMate freeGet warned before the next one at New Madrid Seismic Zone.
QuakeMate sends a push the instant the ground moves - plus tsunami and volcano alerts. Free to download.
New Madrid Seismic Zone: common questions
Why does the central US have earthquakes far from a plate boundary?
The New Madrid zone follows the Reelfoot Rift, a buried system of ancient faults. Present-day stress in the plate interior can reactivate them, producing intraplate earthquakes far from any edge.
Why did people so far away feel the 1811 to 1812 quakes?
The old, cold, solid crust of the continental interior carries seismic waves efficiently, so shaking travelled much farther than a similar quake would in fractured plate-boundary crust.
Related hazard zones
Earthquake data via the QuakeMate API (USGS, EMSC and regional agencies). Historical notes summarise well-established events; magnitudes and dates follow the published record. Live figures may be revised.