Iben Browning
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Iben Browning (1918-1991) was publisher of the Browning Newsletter, a business publication in which he regularly predicted crop failures and market crashes. In an issue in the late 1980s he predicted that an earthquake on the New Madrid fault line in southern Missouri would occur on December 3, 1990; the predicted earthquake did not occur. The prediction created a stir that was followed by scorn and ridicule. Browning died about seven months later from a heart attack in his Albuquerque, New Mexico home.
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[edit] Scientist and Climatologist
Born in 1918, Iben Browning graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1937. He majored in both math and physics, and earned an M.A. at the University of Texas at Austin in 1947, followed by a doctorate of philosophy degree the following year at the same school. His doctorate was in zoology with minors in genetics and bacteriology. He wrote four books, held 60 patents, and served as a climatologist and business consultant to Paine Webber. He also sold an annual newsletter and earned up to $2,500 per public speech.
[edit] Iben Browning's Theory
Browning believed that peaks of tidal loading in the solid earth could trigger earthquakes in regions of high tectonic stress, just as if the trigger of a gun were pulled. He calculated which latitudinal bands of the Earth would be subject to high amplitudes of tidal loading, and he found specific locations within the bands being studied for possible recurrence of large earthquakes. Because these circumstances were in place on December 2-3, 1990, Browning predicted the possibility of an earthquake measured at 7.0 or higher. (The numerological urban legend connected to this event was that the earthquake was to take place on month number 12 of day 3 at 4:56 time with a magnitude 7.8 in the year '90.)
His daughter, Evelyn Garriss Browning, is also a climatologist
[edit] Media Hype
Browning's prediction was widely circulated in the media during the spring and summer of 1990. New Madrid, Missouri even became a tourist attraction selling shirts with a drawing of the state of Missouri with "It's Our Fault!" superimposed. Browning gained greater credibility when the New York Times claimed he had successfully predicted the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake that destroyed much of the San Francisco Bay area. One major television news channel declared that Browning's hypothesis had been correct six times prior to this prediction. And the hype would probably have been even greater had the developing crisis in Iraq not superseded it in news coverage. The hype escalated on September 26, 1990, when a 4.6 earthquake shook the region on the New Madrid fault with an epicenter in New Hamburg, Missouri. Residents in the border states as well as Missouri purchased 'earthquake insurance' in the effort to recover lost properties if the earthquake happened. Several schools in the area even cancelled classes on and around the predicted earthquake date.
[edit] New Madrid Fault Zone
The New Madrid Seismic Zone is centrally located in the Mississippi Valley. It extends from Arkansas through Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky and parts of Illinois. The area has been the site of some of the largest earthquakes in North American history. Three devastating earthquakes rocked the New Madrid region within two months in 1811-1812. Luckily, the area was sparsely populated at the time. The cold bedrock in this part of the country allowed the waves to propagate a great distance, ringing church bells as far away as Boston.
The New Madrid Seismic Zone is an intraplate seismic zone. Such zones are much less active than those found at tectonic plate boundaries. Many geologists believe that the New Madrid fault is a failed rift zone that would have split North America. Examples of rift zones include the Red Sea, the Sea of Cortez, the East African Rift, and even the Atlantic Ocean.
[edit] Popular Culture
The most notable pop-cultural artifact resulting from Browning's prediction was the song "New Madrid," from seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, who included it on their 1993 album, Anodyne. Bassist, and later Wilco founder, Jeff Tweedy sings that "there's a man of conviction/and although he's getting old/Mr. Browning has a prediction/and we've all been told," in this case, that "rivers burn and then run backwards," and "death won't even be still/caroms over the landfill/buries us all in its broken back."
