User:Phoebewolf/1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes

Lead Section
The lead section of the article includes a descriptive and concise introductory sentence that accurately and clearly describes the topic. The introductory sentence is followed by more information about the aftershocks and the area of the United States where the earthquakes occurred. The lead section provides good details about the surrounding region, with a focus on the epicenters of the earthquakes and a period of time in the country’s history where the American frontier was only sparsely settled. The first paragraph of the lead section gets your attention by noting that the New Madrid Earthquakes remain the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history to hit the contiguous United States east of the Rocky Mountains. This statement is referenced and it makes you want to hear more.

The second paragraph of the lead section provides more context of the geographical area and also briefly compares the earthquakes to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The comparison is meant to show how strongly the New Madrid Earthquakes were probably felt over the entire United States. The paragraph ends with a sentence how the earthquakes were interpreted by American Indian tribes, as some kind of religious signs. While very interesting, this sentence seems misplaced because it introduces information that is not present in the rest of the article. The second paragraph also seems to contain information that isn’t properly referenced when discussing what contemporary seismologists estimate the area or miles that the earthquakes could be felt. Because later in the content there are eyewitness accounts of how people experiences and felt the earthquakes, it may be worth mentioning that many eyewitness accounts described the violent quake and aftershocks. I think that discussing what modern seismologists estimate is fine, but when you later have various actual eyewitness statements it might be good to introduce those ideas in the lead section. Especially because the eyewitness statements are a large part of the content and are actually included in their own separate sections. This should be introduced in the lead section.

Content
The articles content is relevant to the topic and the earthquakes and aftershocks are discussed in more detail by using a time-line. This section is relatively concise and contains a good amount of factual information on the quakes and aftershocks, including how they felt and what damage was caused to the area and natural terrain. It might be helpful to have a sentence or two to summarize or introduce the actual facts, but the information and purpose of this section is fairly clear. However, as mentioned when commenting on the lead section, there is a significant amount of coverage on eyewitness accounts that is not introduced or mentioned in the lead section. These accounts are separated into their own section in the content, but they are not properly introduced. There isn’t even an opening sentence in this section. As primary sources of information, these eyewitness accounts seem important, but because they are not properly introduced they also seem a bit misplaced. If the purpose is to show how strong the earthquakes were and how they impacted local people, then it might be good to mention this in the lead section. Perhaps the information on the American Indians could be deleted and a sentence or two added about eyewitness accounts. While the information on the Native Americans is interesting, it is not followed up in the content of the article. If there was more information in the content, then that would make sense. If the section on eyewitness accounts also included some impacts on local Native Americans, then that also might tie the information into the content of this article.

I think the section on geologic setting is good and is introduced in the lead section, but the section could probably be updated with more recent information. The last date mentioned is November 2008 and it is 2021 so that seems like it could be updated with some newer facts and information. Also, the title of “geologic setting” seems a little narrow when also discussing modern activity. It might be better to have one area that focuses on geologic setting and a separate section that focuses on recent activity. Overall, I think the content provides good information but could be improved. There are some underdeveloped sections and some overdeveloped sections. Mostly the tone is neutral, but the information about the Native Americans is not tied into any content so there are sections that could be narrowed, or expanded depending on how you would want to structure the overall content. The Impact on local people could be its own section which would make more sense with the eyewitness accounts and the mentioning of the Native Americans. If the section on more recent activity was further developed, there would need to be better and more accurate references.

Tone and Balance
This article is very neutrally toned which is exactly what you look for in a wikipedia article. This article is in an informative tone based off research done through reading multiple sources so it allows the reader to interpret the event in their own understanding based off of the facts presented. I also think that most points are represented appropriately; the author provides the descriptions of 3 seperate eyewtiness accounts, which, for an event that occured in 1812 is a decent amount although more could always be added. This article does not attempt to have the reader choose a specific viewpoint on the article but rather create their own idea of what the event was like based off data and the description of eyewitness accounts.

Sources and References
Most of the sources are backed by a secondary source and all of the sources are reliable. When I look a the list of sources they used there are several, however some of the articles do not contain a lot of information. The sources are pretty thorough, but some of them contain very little information. All of the sources are current, or within the last 10 years. The sources used are written by many different authors, but a lot of them are from the same website. There are definitely many other sources they could have used, but what they have is good start. All of the links work for all of the sources.

Organization and Writing Quality
The overall organization of the article is easy to follow in terms of what information would be found where. The article has three sections, "The three earthquakes and their major aftershock", "Eyewitness accounts" and "Geological setting", following the lead section. The order of the sections seems a tad off as why the earthquake occurred is the last section. To give the reader background about this area and earthquake activity, the article would flow a bit better with the geological information coming first. Not only was the articles flow altered by the arrangement of the sections, but also the sentence structure itself. The article is composed of sentences that are well written intertwined with run on sentences or ones with confusing wording. These discrepancies make it difficult to understand the information being presented. For example, the specific earthquakes begin with an incomplete sentence, "December 16, 1811, 8:15 UTC (2:15 am local time): M 7.2–8.2, epicenter in what is now northeast Arkansas". They reader might be more receptive if this information was presented in a correct sentence or even a table format for summary at the end of the section. There is also no consistency on how numbers are expressed, "a 7 to 10 percent chance...A 25 to 40% chance exists". This doesn't necessarily affect one's understanding of the information, but consistency would look more professional. Overall the writing quality could be greatly improved with the rewriting of fragment and run-on sentences.

Images and Media
There are not many images included, but the majority of ones aid in the understanding of topics covered in the article. Besides one artistic interpretation of the earthquakes effects, the images used are maps of seismic zones/activity or diagrams explaining geological processes. The article mentions many locations along the seismic region which span several states and the maps aid in the understanding of the distribution of this activity. The diagram of the Reelfoot Rift could have a more descriptive caption. The image itself is not informative if you have no background knowledge of this geological feature. In the gallery there is an image that directly correlates with an idea mentioned in introduction and has a quality caption. I would consider replacing the artwork shown in this section with this map. This could help solidify the concept. The artwork could be placed in the eyewitness section as that aligns more with that section.

Sources and References:
The majority of the links provided in the references section are from USGS sites for areas in the New Madrid area such as Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas. These websites are being updated as new events happen, making them an active source of information and reliable. Other references include peer-reviewed articles that were scanned from a text into pdf form on a website. This research is a reliable source, unlike some of the other links. Some links just do not work or are not being updated and contain out-dated information. I was disappointed by the fact that one of these was a letter written by an eyewtiness, the website seems to be discontinued which is a shame because I would like to know the credibility of the site that provided these eye witness reports.

Talk Page Discussion
A lot of people struggled opening links that the article provided and found them unavailable. This denies easy access to the audience when attempting to find more detail about what happened during this event. There is controversy discussing the articles title, saying having a date isn't the "true form" of a proper title. Another major controversy was the date of the actual earthquake. In the article, the main focus date is February 7th, when other sources talk about the earthquake happened December 16, 1811 (first major shock) through February 7th (last major shock). It causes confusion for the readers when other sources are indifferent with this article about something important. However, the article is apart of five wikiprojects. This includes wikiprojects earthquake, wikiproject Illinois, wikiproject Missouri, wikiproject united states/Kentucky, and wikiproject Tennessee. All of the projects rated it mid tier, or a C. Only one of them labeled is as top-important, the rest agreed with mid or low importance. Compared to the way we discuss the topic in class, we primarily focus on where it happened, magnitude, foreshocks, time, eyewitnesses, damage, and the severity of it. I feel like the article touches on eyewitnesses and the geographical aspect yet misses things such as the damage it caused.

Overall Impressions
The article painted a good picture discussing the time period, presenting dated when certain major events took place. This allows the audience as a whole to grasp the severity of the earthquake and what exactly happened. A strength I found was including the eyewitness accounts. Since these people were actually there when the earthquake took place, it makes you understand the fearful aspect of it. The detail including the distant thunder, vibrations, and the coasting darkness makes you feel as if you experienced the intensity of the earthquake. The only weakness or improvement area would be adding more images to what these eyewitnesses came across. Overall, the article is well-developed yet it could still use some final touches. The introduction lists a lot of facts which is helpful, however they don't have any supporting evidence to back them up. This is something that lacked throughout the article. The only see missing information would be describing the death tolls or casualties, this would aid the audience in seeing how powerful the earthquake was and it's effects on the area it hit.

Contributions
We are going to add a section and label it "Aftermath of earthquake"

Sources that we have found to help support our topic:

https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/earthquake-hazards/science/summary-1811-1812-new-madrid-earthquakes-sequence?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

Johnston, A. C., & Schweig, E. S. (1996). THE -ENIGMA OF THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKES OF 1811-1812. EarthPlanet, 24, 339-384. Retrieved October 14, 2021.

http://www.ceri.memphis.edu/compendium/enigma.pdf

Discussing the damages - including death and casualty statistics; eyewitness

Rafferty, John P.. "New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–12". Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Jan. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Madrid-earthquakes-of-1811-1812. Accessed 15 October 2021

Strelich, L. “Aftershocks of old quake still shake New Madrid Seismic zone ,” https://eos.org/research-spotlights/aftershocks-of-old-quakes-still-shake-new-madrid-seismic-zone, 11-24-2015

Aftermath of Earthquake
Shaking from the earthquake continuously lifted the ground up and down, and caused tree roots to come above the ground from the constant back and forth motion. As a result of these motions, fissures in the ground were created. The lifting and lowering of the ground allowed for landslides to occur, and caused some areas to sink. The areas that sunk were exposed to the water coming from the fissures. One of the areas that experienced a good amount of subsidence, or sinking of the ground, was Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee. The subsidence in this area was as shallow as 1.5m and as deep as 6m in some places. Another place that subsidence occurred, but not as bad was in Lake St. Francis, in eastern Arkansas, however, it was here where sand and coal came out of the fissures, and the water rose about 8 to 9 meters. In addition, the waves coming from the Mississippi River caused by the movements associated with the earthquake, caused boats to wash ashore, river banks rose, sand bars were destroyed, and even some islands completely disappeared. Sand blows also occurred in Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas which destroyed farmland, and due to the limited amount of rocks in the soil, the seismic waves generated from the earthquake were able to travel great distances without being interrupted. As a result of the limited rocks in the soil, places as far away as Canada were still able to feel the ground shaking.

The earthquake wasn't just felt in one place, it was felt across four different states including, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. Producing a value of VII on the Mercalli Intensity Scale, the New Madrid earthquake was one of the strongest earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains that has occurred. While only one life was lost due to falling buildings, the shaking was intense, and caused many chimneys to fall, wood structures to crack, and damage from falling trees. In addition, the New Madrid earthquake created a bit of damage to man-made structures, most of which took place in the epicentral area during the first earthquake on December 16, 1811. Following the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811-12, Geologists have begun estimating the hazard with the new discovery of the reelfoot rift. As a result, highways, buildings, skyscrapers, and bridges were all reevaluated.

The amount of people who died as a result of the earthquake remains unknown to this day. However, we assume that the death toll remains pretty low, due to the population of the area not being very high. In addition, many of the houses that people lived in were log cabins made from wood, which holds up well during earthquakes, and are able to withstand the shaking generated from the earthquake. On the other hand, those that had a houses made from stone did not do as well, and damage to them was reported.