Word: madrid
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...October 1987 President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado unveiled Salinas as the P.R.I.'s presidential candidate for 1988, anointing him as crown prince. But his struggle was not over. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the son of a venerated former President, broke with the P.R.I. and ran a populist campaign that drew unexpectedly strong support. Partisans insisted that Cardenas won and that the 50.3% of the vote credited to Salinas was the result of massive fraud. Though election chicanery is commonplace in Mexico, Salinas is the first President to have the legitimacy of his mandate widely questioned...
Today the fault at New Madrid remains active, regularly generating small, unnoticeable earthquakes and, from time to time, palpable jolts. Such quakes usually do not stir more than passing interest. But last week residents of southeastern Missouri snapped to attention when a moderate earthquake, rated 4.6 on the Richter scale, rattled windows, spilled coffee and broke ceramic figurines. Reason: the earthquake followed a much publicized prediction that the fault is likely to produce a major shock come Dec. 3, and many people feared last week's tremor could be a precursor. The prediction, which has made its way into several...
...well be made of playing cards. "The infrastructure in this part of the country has never been tested by a major quake," says Arch Johnston of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at Memphis State University. Fortunately, when the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 occurred, the New Madrid region was too sparsely populated to suffer significant damage or injuries. A modern-day replay, however, would make the quake that shook San Francisco last year seem tame. That tremor measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. In contrast, the big quakes that rumbled forth from New Madrid may have exceeded...
...along the boundaries of continental plates, huge sections of the earth's crust that "float" on a mass of superheated rock. California's San Andreas Fault, for instance, marks the dividing line between the North American and Pacific plates, which are slowly slipping past each other. But the New Madrid fault lies in the middle of the North American plate, seemingly far from harm's way. Why do earthquakes occur in such an out- of-the-way spot? By analyzing seismic data, scientists have concluded that the New Madrid fault is a failed rift, or break, in the North American...
...area around the New Madrid fault is one of several known earthquake zones east of the Rockies. In 1755 Boston experienced a severe jolt, as did Charleston in 1886. Sooner or later a major quake is going to hit these areas again. And unlike the Western U.S., where hot rock close to the surface provides a squishy, shock-absorbing cushion, the middle of the continental plate is cold, hard and thick. Like their precursors in the past century, the next large quakes to strike in the Midwest or East are likely to resonate far and wide, like giant hammers hitting...