...Earthquakes in Missouri...
Earthquakes in Missouri?
Yes, they happen. There is at least one known fault in the center of the country that runs very near the Mississippi River. This is the New Madrid fault. It is located across the bootheel of Missouri and has been the epicenter of several large and historic earthquakes in the Center of the U.S.
One of the most historic quakes to come from the New Madrid fault was the New Madrid Earthquake. It was one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in the contiguous United States, and occurred on February 7, 1812. It got its name from its primary location in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, near New Madrid, Louisiana Territory (now Missouri).
This earthquake was preceded by three other major quakes: two on December 16, 1811, and one on January 23, 1812. These earthquakes destroyed approximately half the town of New Madrid. There were also numerous aftershocks in the area for the rest of that winter. (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_earthquake)
Seismic Deformation (from: http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/seismic-waves.html)
When an earthquake fault ruptures, it causes two types of deformation: static; and dynamic. Static deformation is the permanent displacement of the ground due to the event. 
Typically, someone will build a straight reference line such as a road, railroad, pole line, or fence line across the fault while it is in the pre-rupture stressed state. After the earthquake, the formerly stright line is distorted into a shape having increasing displacement near the fault, a process known as elastic rebound.
Seismic Waves
The second type of deformation, dynamic motions, are essentially sound waves radiated from the earthquake as it ruptures. While most of the plate-tectonic energy driving fault ruptures is taken up by static deformation, up to 10% may dissipate immediately in the form of seismic waves.
The mechanical properties of the rocks that seismic waves travel through quickly organize the waves into two types. Compressional waves, also known as primary or P waves, travel fastest, at speeds between 1.5 and 8 kilometers per second in the Earth’s crust. Shear waves, also known as secondary or S waves, travel more slowly, usually at 60% to 70% of the speed of P waves.
P waves shake the ground in the direction they are propagating, while S waves shake perpendicularly or transverse to the direction of propagation.
Although wave speeds vary by a factor of ten or more in the Earth, the ratio between the average speeds of a P wave and of its following S wave is quite constant. This fact enables seismologists to simply time the delay between the arrival of the P wave and the arrival of the S wave to get a quick and reasonably accurate estimate of the distance of the earthquake from the observation station. Just multiply the S-minus-P (S-P) time, in seconds, by the factor 8 km/s to get the approximate distance in kilometers.
From The USGSMeasuring Earthquakes
The vibrations produced by earthquakes are detected, recorded, and measured by instruments call seismographs. The zig-zag line made by a seismograph, called a "seismogram," reflects the changing intensity of the vibrations by responding to the motion of the ground surface beneath the instrument. From the data expressed in seismograms, scientists can determine the time, the epicenter, the focal depth, and the type of faulting of an earthquake and can estimate how much energy was released.
The two general types of vibrations produced by earthquakes are surface waves, which travel along the Earth’s surface, and body waves, which travel through the Earth. Surface waves usually have the strongest vibrations and probably cause most of the damage done by earthquakes.
Body waves are of two types, compressional and shear. Both types pass through the Earth’s interior from the focus of an earthquake to distant points on the surface, but only compressional waves travel through the Earth’s molten core. Because compressional waves travel at great speeds and ordinarily reach the surface first, they are often called "primary waves" or simply "P" waves. P waves push tiny particles of Earth material directly ahead of them or displace the particles directly behind their line of travel.
Shear waves do not travel as rapidly through the Earth’s crust and mantle as do compressional waves, and because they ordinarily reach the surface later, they are called "secondary" or "S" waves. Instead of affecting material directly behind or ahead of their line of travel, shear waves displace material at right angles to their path and therefore sometimes called "transverse" waves.
The first indication of an earthquake is often a sharp thud, signaling the arrival of compressional waves. This is followed by the shear waves and then the "ground roll" caused by the surface waves.For more, go to the USGS Earthquake information page.
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