Meers fault are consistent with the tectonic stress pattern of North America which favours movement along the Meers fault unless one assumes a rotation of stress patterns in the South Oklahoma Aulacogen. The ratio of the horizontal to vertical motion is about 1.3–1.5 or about 2:1 although the amount of horizontal movement on the fault is controversial. Alternatively, the fault movement could have occurred through aseismic creep as there is little evidence of strong ground shaking in the area as well as evidence against strong ground motion although the soils found close to the fault trace show evidence of fast movement. In general, the movement direction of the Meers fault is contentious. Present-day status The Meers fault presently is largely aseismic, with no earthquakes recorded along its Holocene trace or any evidence of aseismic creep although minor seismicity has been recorded and a earthquake close to Lawton in 1998 is close to the southeastern end of the Meers fault. Likewise, seismicity is scarce in the wider region and photographic analysis has shown little evidence of recent fault movement in other faults of the Wichita fault system. Seismological context and threats The region is part of the stable continent and away from plate boundaries and other tectonically active areas. Earthquakes in Oklahoma have been observed in the areas of the southern Oklahoma aulacogen and of the Amarillo-Wichita uplift; in southwestern Oklahoma they are rare and of moderate intensity. In the wider area around the Meers fault such as in the Texas Panhandle, the Arbuckle Mountains and around Enola, Arkansas there is evidence of recent seismic and fault activity which may be part of a larger seismic zone. The activity of the Meers fault and other seismicity has been related to a continent-spanning fault zone and there might be a relation to the Brevard Zone in Atlanta as well. Judging earthquake hazards in the central and eastern United States is made hard by the scarcity of geological evidence of seismicity, the long timespans between earthquakes and the shortness of the historical record thereof. In addition, earthquakes are often only weakly correlated to geological structures such as faults. Assessing the hazard potential for the Meers fault suffers from similar problems but it is considered the largest seismic hazard source of the central United States as it has the potential to cause large earthquakes and earthquakes in the central United States usually affect much