University of Missouri Conference to Commemorate New Madrid Quakes

Scientists and historians will gather at the University of Missouri in Columbia on Saturday for a conference commemorating the 200th anniversary of the New Madrid earthquakes.

The program is titled “It’s Your Fault.” The agenda includes presentations by scientists and historians who study the series of quakes that rocked the central and southern United States between December 1811 and February 1812.

The earthquakes were centered in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, a 150-mile stretch of land between Memphis and St. Louis that crosses parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

The conference is scheduled from 12:30 to 4 p.m. Saturday in Chambers Auditorium in the MU Student Center. It will also feature a dramatic performance based on eyewitness accounts of the quakes.