Word: smalling
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Three times, between Dec, 16, 1811, and Feb. 7, 1812, such scenes were repeated as major earthquakes jolted the region around the small Mississippi River town of New Madrid, Mo. Because the region was sparsely inhabited, few lives were lost. Still, the shocks were so powerful that they caused church bells to ring as far away as Charleston, S.C., stopped pendulum clocks in Washington, D.C., and shook buildings in New York City. No seismographs existed at the time, but detailed descriptions by survivors indicate that the intensities of the three quakes would have ranged between...
...Geological Survey scientists mapped only a small section of this fault zone-in Arkansas' Mississippi and Craighead counties-but they suspect it continues north for some 100 km (62 miles), through Arkansas and northwestern Tennessee. There the fault system veers off past New Madrid and probably continues into southern Illinois. In all, the scientists count about half a dozen associated faults, although their data are still sketchy. Says St. Louis University Geophysicist Sean-Thomas Morrissey: "You can't go out and stick your finger in the fault like in California...
...able to measure these movements and perhaps ultimately even forecast future large quakes. Is another monster New Madrid quake likely? Seismologist Otto Nuttli of St. Louis University has no doubts. Says he: "Pressure is building up all along the fault. That's why we're having small earthquakes. The little ones are symptomatic of the stress. They are not relieving it. Everything points to something big happening in New Madrid." But when? "A moderately large earthquake," he says, "could conceivably not come for 100 or even 500 years. Or it could happen tomorrow...
Such tales have not been limited to small firms. Chemical Bank, which lost $6 million in post-Volckerism bond dealing, abruptly fired its trading manager. A billion-dollar sure thing- the issuing of IBM bonds last month- turned into a pumpkin for such blue-ribbon investment bankers as Salomon Bros., which had underwritten the deal. Because of difficulties selling the IBM securities, Salomon and other traders had to swallow losses of $10 million. For the once staid bond market, it has been a fitting 50th anniversary of the Great Crash...
...used to joke that his company actually had a three-word name: "Ailing American Motors." Now Tippett and his colleagues are laughing for a different reason. AMC has pulled back from the brink yet again, chiefly by cutting its work force, consolidating its plants and concentrating on a few small cars and specialized vehicles...