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I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.

On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.

On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.

For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius. 

I further examined more details about the Fukushima disaster not mentioned in the article as I don't remember much from when this disaster occured. I also examined more about the first responders at Fukushima and the efforts that were made to attempt to minimize the effects of the disaster on an individual scale. I then looked into other similar disasters, like the Chernobyl disaster, that have occurred that I was not very familiar with and compared them to the Fukushima disaster.

This publication is referenced in various articles and Wiki pages (wikipedia, wikispaces).