PREPARING FOR the coming Mega-Quake. “Meanwhile, Americans have been reminded that earthquakes aren’t purely a California hazard. In August 2011, a 5.8-magnitude tremor struck near Richmond, Va. That quake, felt from Georgia to Quebec, was the largest to hit the Southeast in more than a century. Using new paleoseismic data and more complex computer-forecasting techniques, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is refining risk estimates for places such as the Cascadia subduction zone off the Pacific Northwest coast, the Wasatch fault near Salt Lake City, and the New Madrid seismic zone, extending from southern Illinois into Arkansas, which experienced four magnitude-7 quakes back in 1811 and 1812.”