Has there been an increase in earthquake activity?
Cross posted from my personal blog: Have there really been more earthquakes than average?
Damage in Santiago, Chile. Photo by Reuters/Marco Fredes
After the massive earthquake this past weekend in Chile, MSNBC published a sensationalistic piece entitled, “Is nature out of control?” The Wall Street Journal asked if three massive earthquakes around the world in two months are related and a cause for alarm. The mainstream media, always searching for sensationalistic or fear mongering news, has latched onto the question; are we seeing more earthquakes than normal?
Well, not really. Let’s take a look at how many earthquakes occur each year on average. The USGS has a fascinating page of earthquake facts and statistics, with the following table:
| Magnitude | Average Annually |
|---|---|
| 8 and higher | 1 ¹ |
| 7 – 7.9 | 17 ² |
| 6 – 6.9 | 134 ² |
| 5 – 5.9 | 1319 ² |
| 4 – 4.9 | 13,000 (estimated) |
| 3 – 3.9 | 130,000 (estimated) |
| 2 – 2.9 | 1,300,000 (estimated) |
¹ Based on observations since 1900.
² Based on observations since 1990.
Let’s take earthquakes based in the M6.0 – M6.9 range. Why am I picking earthquakes in the magnitude 6 range? It’s arbitrary. You can repeat this process for earthquakes of any range. Based on data recorded since 1990, we’d expect to see an earthquake within this magnitude range occur every 2.7 days or so.
So here we are, on March 1st, 2010, the 60th day of the year. How many earthquakes in the M6.0 – M6.9 range have we had this year? According to this handy search tool from the USGS, there have been 25 earthquakes of M6.0 – M6.9 in 2010.
PDE-Q 2010 01 02 084532.05 12.42 141.96 2 6.1
PDE-Q 2010 01 03 214805.32 -8.74 157.48 26 6.6
PDE-Q 2010 01 05 045538.91 -58.17 -14.70 10 6.8
PDE-Q 2010 01 05 121532.21 -9.02 157.55 15 6.8
PDE-Q 2010 01 05 131142.82 -9.05 157.89 35 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 01 09 055130.47 -9.13 157.63 12 6.2
PDE-Q 2010 01 10 002739.32 40.65 -124.69 29 6.5
PDE-Q 2010 01 12 220041.49 18.39 -72.78 10 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 01 17 120001.08 -57.66 -65.88 5 6.3
PDE-Q 2010 02 01 222816.92 -6.11 154.46 32 6.2
PDE-Q 2010 02 05 065905.64 -47.90 99.66 1 6.2
PDE-Q 2010 02 06 044458.40 46.84 152.73 30 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 02 07 061000.24 23.48 123.64 21 6.3
PDE-Q 2010 02 09 010344.44 -15.05 -173.49 10 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 02 13 023428.69 -21.89 -174.77 11 6.1
PDE-Q 2010 02 15 215148.56 -7.19 128.78 130 6.2
PDE-Q 2010 02 18 011319.93 42.61 130.70 580 6.9
PDE-Q 2010 02 22 070054.60 -23.72 -175.98 35 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 065234.57 -34.80 -72.65 35 6.2
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 071228.81 -33.83 -71.91 35 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 073718.52 -36.84 -72.54 35 6.0
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 080123.93 -37.71 -75.21 37 6.9
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 082529.61 -34.76 -72.37 35 6.1
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 154541.09 -24.59 -65.43 38 6.3
PDE-Q 2010 02 27 190008.01 -33.42 -71.91 34 6.3
That works out to roughly one earthquake in the magnitude 6.0 range every 2.4 days. That doesn’t seem unreasonable, but we should do some further work to put it in context. We can plot up the number of earthquakes per year and come up with a standard deviation, assuming a normal distribution of earthquakes in any given magnitude range.
2010 25 2.4
2009 142 2.57
2008 168 2.18
2007 178 2.05
2006 142 2.57
2005 140 2.61
2004 141 2.60
2003 140 2.61
2002 127 2.9
2001 121 3.02
2000 146 2.51
1999 116 3.15
1998 109 3.35
1997 120 3.04
1996 149 2.46
1995 183 1.99
1994 146 2.5
1993 137 2.66
1992 166 2.20
1991 108 3.38
1990 109 3.35
Total results: 21
Mean (average): 2.67143
Standard deviation: 0.41732
So, the number of magnitude 6 earthquakes that we’ve had in 2010 falls within one standard deviation of the mean. If we were to plot up a graph, it’d look like this. The error bars represent one standard deviation.
Awesome! Well, what about those ranges of values that fall outside of one standard deviation from the mean? For those that don’t understand how statistics works, check out the following bell curve from Wikipedia.
This shows roughly the percentage of values that you’d expect to fall within a specific standard deviation away from the mean value.
Dark blue is less than one standard deviation from the mean. For the normal distribution, this accounts for about 68% of the set (dark blue), while two standard deviations from the mean (medium and dark blue) account for about 95%, and three standard deviations (light, medium, and dark blue) account for about 99.7%.
So, if we modify our graph to show an error bar of 2 standard deviations, you’ll notice that every result since 1990 fits inside this model! Simply put, there is absolutely nothing strange happening.
In fact, thanks to this normal curve you can basically predict, with a 99.7% chance of success, that an earthquake of equal / greater than M6.0 will occur somewhere around the world within the next 3.5 days.
Alright, so what’s with all the coverage on earthquakes? It sure seems like a lot is happening, right? We can attribute this to observer bias. The massive devastation in Haiti warranted a large amount of news coverage. Because this is so fresh in everyone’s mind, people are more likely to notice any news or information related to earthquakes.
It’s the same principle that happens whenever you acquire some new toy, gadget, or piece of clothing. Suddenly, you notice that particular item around all the time. It’s like everyone has it.
So, bottom line, the Earth isn’t becoming more active, more dangerous, or even “out of control.” Despite the fear mongering and what esteemed mainstream media networks would have you believe, the simple reality is that the numbers prove things are happening at an expected rate. Keep that in mind the next time a large earthquake happens and everyone is wondering why the Earth seems so active!
Similar Posts on Geology News:
- Earthquake Fatalities High in 2008
- M7.8 Earthquake in Central China
- New Forecast for California Earthquakes
- Earthquakes in the Midwest
- Possible Cascadia and San Andreas fault link
Awesome analysis!! Thank you for straightening this out.
Earthquakes are part of the earths natural activity. Most earth quakes are not even noticed. But the real question has not been answerd. Is there an incease on earthquake devestation and fatalaties comapared to the past? I would like to see a bell curve or bar graph on that question based on number of people killed becasue of earthquakes. Will the graph disprove the signs of the times.
Of course there are more people affected by earthquakes, even if earthquake activity was the same – there are just more people!
Sure, there are more people, but there’s also more science around building design and survivability. I’m not saying that the two counterbalance each other, but I am saying that a blind appeal to “more people to injure, therefore more will be injured” is not necessarily logical.
It seems to me that the media is just sensationalizing the earthquakes more these days thanks to the pictures and information they can receive from people in the areas that these are happening. There hasn’t been more earthquakes, just more news coverage of the earthquakes.
i dont believe this their has been almost a big earthquake every day for two weeks now so get your facts strait
The numbers are straight from the USGS. If you’d like to run them yourself, be my guest!
Anyway, not sure I’d trust statistical analysis from someone who doesn’t understand proper grammar.
For curiosity’s sake, I ran the numbers again.
Today is March 12th, the 71st day of the year.
According to the USGS, there have no been 41 M6.0 – M6.9 earthquakes so far in 2010 (Whoa! One would assume that a lot of those are aftershocks from the great Chilean earthquake).
That means we’ve had an earthquake in the M6 range every 1.73 days. Alright, that number is getting down there. Is it a cause for alarm?
No. Why?
The standard deviation is 0.417 days with a mean of 2.671 days between earthquakes of this size (if you’re curious how I got those numbers, reread the article). Since we can expect to find 99.7% of all results within 3 standard deviations of the mean, let’s figure that out. 0.417 x 3 days = +\- 1.251 days.
2.671 days – 1.251 days = 1.42 days.
If you start seeing a M6 earthquake more than every 1.42 days, then come talk to me.
There’s nothing to worry about.
Ok, now it is August 16. Could you run your analysis again, and could you please do it for earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range this time?
Mahalo!
Mary
Just to help you out, I count on the USGS site, a total of 16 earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.0 and above since Jan 3, 2010. So, we are 7 1/2 months into the year and already are just 2 earthquakes shy of meeting the annual average of 17 earthquakes between 7.0 & 7.9 and 1 above 8.
That would seem like a statistically significant increase in these great quakes, any way you slice, dice or graph it.
i will run them myself because clearly you only accounting for only 6.0-7.0 earthquakes if you are going to do research on only a quarter of the quakes you wont get all the info you need you need to start at 6.0 and go all the way up to the highest magnitude and compare that to the other years because you are only showing a little bit of info!!!!!!
Hah, okay Austin.
Here’s the break down for other magnitudes in 2010. If you want to search yourself, you can use this tool:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/epic/epic_global.php
2010 earthquakes:
M7.0 – M7.9: 3 earthquakes so far in 2010 (yearly average: 17)
M8.0 – M8.9: 1 earthquake so far in 2010 (yearly average: ~1)
If you want to account for M7 earthquakes:
365 days / 17 eq’s per year = 21.47 days per EQ.
2010: 71 days / 3 eq’s in 2010 = 23.67 days per EQ.
Magnitude 8 earthquakes? Average is about 1 a year. We had one.
What if we have another 8.0 earthquake? That would be TWO TIMES the 100-year average! Joe Biden might call it a BFD.
aww who cares this austin kid doesnt know how to spell STRAIGHT so if he doesnt know how to spell straight then he obviously doesnt know how to work with averaging numbers. i say he needs to go back to 1st grade. you are obviously smarter than him. :) haha lol
On the first chart above, where there are the headings: “Magnitude” and “Average Annually” there is the following notation: 2 Based on observations since 1990. I have to wonder, why only use the data collected since 1990? The USGS website also has data from 1980 to 1989 for earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 6.0 to 9.9. Why not use that data too? In fact, the more years of data we can use to establish our baseline, the more reliable our numbers would be.
Using data from the USGS website, I took a couple of minutes to graph earthquakes in the 6.0 to 9.9 range for the following decades: 1980 – 1989, 1990-1999, 2000 – 2009. Just a glance at the graph I came up with shows that there were less earthquakes in the 1980′s than in the following decades. For example, during the 1980′s the year with the most earthquakes (1983) still had LESS earthquakes than any year from 2000 through 2009.
If you want to make your own graph and see for yourself – the data is fairly easy to find on the USGS website.
Thanks for this! :)
“2010 March 8 astanix
It seems to me that the media is just sensationalizing the earthquakes more these days thanks to the pictures and information they can receive from people in the areas that these are happening. There hasn’t been more earthquakes, just more news coverage of the earthquakes.’
There have been 245 earthquakes in Alaska in the last 7 days. These quakes have gone UNREPORTED by the media. I’d call 245 quakes in one state in 7 days pretty damn sensational if you ask me.
I know this post is old and you probably won’t respond, but I’m not sure what kind of point you’re trying to make with that 245 quakes in 7 days number. 245 quakes of any magnitude in 7 days in a state that lies along an active plate margin is not surprising at all. If we had sensitive enough equipment to detect the smallest quakes, we would probably record over 245 quakes every single day, maybe even in an hour, depending on how you define “quake” (i.e. just due to tectonics or including volcanic tremor and other seismogenic sources). Now if 245 quakes of magnitude 6 or above occurred in a week in Alaska, then you’d have something and you would have permission to announce that doomsday has arrived.
Dave,
Very cool research that you have done here! I would love to see this type of research presented for earthquakes of a magnitude of 7 or higher, since those are the ones considered major earthquakes and the ones we have been seeing covered more in the news lately.
According to this website: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/magnitude.html, we only get a magnitude 8 earthquake or higher every 5-10 years, not every year. However, the following website shows a much higher average than that, especially in the last 10 years: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/mag8/magnitude8_1900_date.php
earthquakes are going to continue to get worst and all this is suppost to happen because jeuse christ say in mattew chapter 24 verse 7 . (for nation will rise agianst nation and kindom agaist kingdom , and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. ALL THESE THINGS ARE THE BEGINNING OF PANGS OF DITRESS! )now dont we see all this now this is just the beging of the end of this system of things
Maybe it’s the first time you have noticed these things, but for Christ’s sake man, there have been wars, food shortages, and earthquakes since thousands of years before Jesus. I suppose this world has been ending since its beginning, hallelujah!
Dave,
I’m thinking it would be a useful public service to run the numbers again now that we’ve had Mexico and Sumatra pop off within 2 days of each other… doubtless their proximity of timing is going to have people asking these same questions again. I’d love to have an up-to-date analysis to point to…
Pretty please?
Thanks,
C
I find this study interesting – but I noticed on the USGS info, 2009 was a pretty stiff spike – not like 1900′s though. Since we’ve had the 1 big one early on this year, it seems perhaps we’re in for another action-packed 2010 – we’ll see. But if so, that would be a change – most of the spikes are single-year events. If we start to have spikes of more than one year in length, there could be something happening… I would be interested though in a more thorough comparison between this data, and other geologic activity such as volcanoes, rockslides, oceanic tides/temps, to see if there is some correlation in a frequency change. Things like Yellowstone becoming more active, or other changes might point to the beginnings of a steady increase in some activity.
Consequently, we do get more information from world news because of the increase in communication, which might also be contributing, but it’s certainly something to be aware of.
Dave, there have been at least two more 7-8 mag. earthquakes since your research. Fortunately, even if that deviates from the mean, we still have the rest of the year! Nice work on the data. I feel better now knowing that there’s nothing unusual going on.
Ran it for 8.0-8.9 quakes from 1973 to 1999 it reported 15 quakes in this magnitude. Then from 2000 – 2010 it reported 13, thow its data is old I would say it was closer to 14 or 15. So what in 26 years there was 15 quaks, and in only 9 years, there have been almost as many. But ofcourse I must be an idiot because earthquake activity has not gone up at all.. yea right.
Hey, thanks for posting this. I had to forward the USGS info to my inlaws who are Southern Baptist evangelicals convinced that the end of the world is fast approaching because of the past three earthquakes. You know, “signs” of the apocalypse? Sigh…no, they aren’t educated; and yes, they homeschool their children.
Thanks for the analysis. That was a very professional way of presenting it.
I think the proper question is this:
Are major earthquakes striking major metropolitan areas more often than years past?
Interesting article in the LATimes. EQ activity on a global basis may be “average” but on a regional basis it appears to not be “average”.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/california-sees-increase-in-earthquake-sesimologists-fight-twitter-rumors.html
Hi! very interesting article, specially because you took data and converted it into information, and yes, the statical work is really good, but also as much people comment here, probably, and I say probably because I dont have the right data, there have been earthquakes with more impact, just happened again in China, so in this year, we have had three (Haiti, Chile, China) with a lot of dead people (sadly) and high economical cost (buildings, roads, houses), so I dont remember last year three earthquakes like that… :( and there’s still a lot of 2010 to go, I think this analisys would be better at the end of the year. Good day.
Thanks for doing the work. I’ve been following this activity lately and it was starting to worry me. I’m glad to hear it’s within the normal range.
We had one last month in Chicago which never happens and that got me paying attention. If it starts to rain frogs, I’ll get back to you.
That’s great that you have a handle on the numbers and everything. Unfortunately numbers are merely symbols and are virtually meaningless without context. In this case, your context is yearly earthquake averages.
Since it is early in the year, you should divide the averages of the previous years for the correct proportion. Do earthquakes normally average something like one over 6.0 every week? I don’t think so…
Here’s what I do know, I don’t remember reading about a new earthquake and/or volcano every week last year. As I visited the Science (including Geology) offices at USI and carefully read the huge poster about the New Madrid Fault, everybody seemed extremely nervous. I mean, why are they so uptight? It’s just freaking Geology, I was waiting to talk to a professor, reading posters and looking at fossils RED ALERT!! Lol. In addition, it is my understanding that mountaintop and glacial ice has been melting, and mountains (which are connected to tectonic plates) have been moving at accelerated rates due to the weight loss.
Don’t bury your head in the sand friend. Denial is not part of the scientific process. And don’t over-specialize on me and act like it’s not your job to advise people to know where their gas shutoff valves are and to have some distilled water on hand. It’s just common sense (not just for commoners).
*7.0 every week…
What’s up, I hit this site alot since it is one of the top results on Google right now. I ran a few numbers myself, and came up with some conclusions that further knowledge of statistical analysis may inform:
(every 365 days) 8+ 1/y
(every 021 days) 7 – 7.9 17/y
(every 2.7 days) 6 – 6.9 134/y
(every 396 mins) 5 – 5.9 1319/y
(every 40 mins) 4 – 4.9 13,000/y
(every 04 mins) 3 – 3.9 130,000/y
(every 24 secs) 2 – 2.9 1,300,000/y
Just using the calculator to help me understand this was pretty relaxing. Still, I think these averages aren’t helping my understanding very much. I mean, measuring things like this by the year is a really awkward yardstick. Predicting an earthquake or understanding transtectonic inertial communication with today’s technology seems analogous to picking a GPS point from cellular triangulation data. It really does seem to me that recent geological activities have had more global correlation lately. These are the kinds of patterns that this class of statistical analysis is apparently not able to illuminate further. Not only do we need to see different arbitrary classes of magnitude compared by yearly average, but we also need to see how often earthquakes happen and look at clusters of events and rate those events by probable correlation.
How long does it take for a volcano’s force to transfer to the leading edges of its home plate? How would a volcano in the middle of a plate be affect tectonic inertia compared to a volcano on a fault?
Do continential plates kiss with English? How far does a plate have to move before the contact materials reach their structural failure limits? How does lateral motion affect the abraison differently from vertical motion? How would melting ice modify the vector dynamics through the geological interfaces? …
Thank you for that I’ve been hearing to much hype about earthquakes and the end of the world lately. Everyone is talking about this polar shift like in the resent movie 2012, can you shine any light on the possibility of something like this happening.
About those suspicious ranges….
We love science, this is what it is all about. Lets get to the facts. I think these apparently comforting numbers are of little value without being refined a bit. And trust me I want them to be comforting! But that’s the trouble with bias isn’t it? It cuts both ways.
Unfortunately, this article covers only the last 20 years. See? 1990-2020. What are the numbers on earthquakes since we have been recording? The article points out that we have been keeping records much longer. A century in fact.
Better detection makes a difference only for small quakes. Naturally there are more observers (more people on the planet to get shaken up and bother to take note) with better tools, so we see more.
So narrow the numbers to places that have had continual habitation. Then make sue they and lie along active fault lines. The numbers should tell the story over the century.
Bad method you cry? Maybe. Then why not try adjusting for the increase in numbers of people and the increase in number and sensitivity of seismographs. Is that so hard? Those are precisely known quantities.
Since large earthquakes are the ones that we notice, lets look at numbers for quakes 6.0 and above for the last hundred years. What’s the story?
Excuse me..if maths is not an opinion.. there HAS been a definitive increase in earthquakes, which you can see by analysing the very data of USGS, the same data they use to tell us everything is fine:
last updated 27 February 2010
Source: – http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/other/quake1.html
(all data from USGS)
World Earthquakes, 1970-2010
year number of earthquakes in magnitude range estimated deaths
8.0 to 9.9 7.0 to 7.9 6.0 to 6.9 5.0 to 5.9 5.0 to 9.9
1970 0 20 110 1,195 1,325 68,202
1971 1 19 112 1,331 1,463 1,279
1972 0 15 110 1,316 1,441 11,179
1973 0 13 95 1,331 1,439 659
1974 0 14 99 1,312 1,425 5,440
1975 1 14 107 1,447 1,569 12,372
1976 2 15 114 1,649 1,780 697,309
1977 2 11 89 1,686 1,788 2,849
1978 0 16 93 1,526 1,635 15,192
1979 0 13 100 1,366 1,479 1,475
1980 1 13 105 1,299 1,418 8,620
1981 0 13 90 1,168 1,271 5,223
1982 0 10 85 1,425 1,520 3,328
1983 0 14 126 1,673 1,813 2,372
1984 0 8 91 1,579 1,678 174
1985 1 13 110 1,674 1,798 9,846
1986 1 5 89 1,665 1,760 1,068
1987 0 11 112 1,437 1,560 1,080
1988 0 8 93 1,485 1,586 26,552
1989 1 6 79 1,444 1,530 617
1990 0 18 109 1,617 1,744 52,056
1991 0 16 96 1,457 1,569 3,210
1992 0 13 166 1,498 1,677 3,920
1993 0 12 137 1,426 1,575 10,096
1994 2 11 146 1,542 1,701 1,634
1995 2 18 183 1,318 1,521 7,980
1996 1 14 149 1,222 1,386 589
1997 0 16 120 1,113 1,249 3,069
1998 1 11 117 979 1,108 9,430
1999 0 18 116 1,104 1,238 22,662
2000 1 14 146 1,344 1,505 231
2001 1 15 121 1,224 1,361 21,357
2002 0 13 127 1,201 1,341 1,685
2003 1 14 140 1,203 1,358 33,819
2004 2 14 141 1,515 1,672 228,802
2005 1 10 140 1,693 1,844 82,364
2006 2 9 142 1,712 1,865 6,605
2007 4 14 178 2,074 2,270 712
2008 0 12 168 1,768 1,948 88,011
2009 1 16 142 1,700 1,859 1,787
2010 1 2 18 258 279 230,000
EARTHQUAKES MAGNITUDE from 6.0 to 6.9
SINCE 1970 TO 1991 (included) : 2.214 = YEARLY AVERAGE for 21 years: 105
SINCE 1992 TO 2009 (included) : 2.579 = YEARLY AVERAGE for 18 years: 143
AVERAGE INCREASE OF 37% IN 18 YEARS
EARTHQUAKES MAGNITUDE from 7.0 to 7.9
SINCE 1970 TO 1991 (included) : 285 = YEARLY AVERAGE for 21 years: 13,5
SINCE 1992 TO 2009 (included) : 260 = YEARLY AVERAGE for 18 years: 14,4
AVERAGE INCREASE OF 7% IN 18 YEARS
EARTHQUAKES MAGNITUDE from 8.0 to 9.9
SINCE 1970 TO 1991 (included) : 10 = YEARLY AVERAGE for 21 years:: 0,47
SINCE 1992 TO 2009 (included) : 20 = YEARLY AVERAGE for 18 years: 1,11
AVERAGE INCREASE OF 140% IN 18 YEARS
AND I am not considering data prior to 1970…
Emanuela, Italy
@ Emanuela,
Nice analysis.
But perhaps the USGS data for before 1990 is incomlete. That would skew results.
Try comparing 1990-2000 to 2000-2010. Or better yet, do it for each of the fout decades from 1970 to 2010.
Silly people run the numbers. The earth shakes constantly.
Yes, it’s does, but to what degree? Look at the USGS earthquake activity reports, they are increasing and we are having earthquakes in areas that do not have them normally. What’s going on in Arizona? What about Japan. You can’t deny something is happening, besides the norm.
The USGS reports are not increasing. Japan sits on an active plate boundary and is known for having many earthquakes. Arizona, New Mexico and many parts of the Southwest have them as well (though much more infrequently).
well this article is using fraudelent statsitcal techniques …. the graphs are misleading and the analysis is distorted ….
GUESS WHAT SOMEBODY IS DOSING THE WEB WITH SOME CHILL IT OUT PROPOGANDA
surprise surprise its top of the google search …… yes trillions of dollars spent by the ministries of misinformation
we just have to search really carefully to get any information on our best propaganda machine the tinternet
the truth is the earths core is heating up …. in a completely unmanagable way
You have a thermometer in the earth’s core? Care to explain to us how these statisitics are fraudulent? C’mon Sam!!
It’s not the mag thats important it’s the depth aswell.
I have a theory: Thermal Expansion of the Tectonic Plates due to warming of the South China Sea is contributing to Earthquakes on the Convergent Boundaries of the Southeastern Portion of the Eurasian Plate.
My wife and I have a beach house in the Philippines; she was in the air flying to the Philippines when the tsunami that struck Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia in 2004. Immediately I started diligently looking into weather she might be in danger at our beach house or if the house may have already been destroyed. This led me to start looking into the convergent boundaries of the Southeastern portion of the Eurasian Plate and plate movement. I continued to research the plates and their movement till some weeks later I went on a scheduled trip to the Philippines to spend some time on the beach with my wife.
One day I was looking out into the Pacific Ocean trying to fathom the size of the Oceans, the size of the Tectonic plates and admittedly, my insignificance in relation. While in the hot Philippine sun I also could not fathom the extent of global warming if the Oceans and Seas have warmed measurably in the last thirty years. The amount of energy introduced to our atmosphere contributing to Storms, Hurricanes and the like would be peanuts compared to the amount of energy introduced to our Oceans and Seas to show a measurable change in temperature and melt huge portions of the polar ice caps annually. With water covering most of the earth’s surface, that is a lot of water and a lot of energy.
And at the peak of my feeling of insignificance it came to me because I remembered a truck scale that was being installed and I was performing a calculation to determine the amount of expand from winter to summer conditions. I was surprised to find there would be about 5/8” change in length over 50ft in length and a 60 Deg change in temperature. If the Oceans and Seas have more energy, the Tectonic Plates would have more energy; possibly causing thermal expansion as did as did the Oceans and Seas; as found by sea level change. Since the equation for thermal expansion of a material is “Change in Length = (Coefficient of thermal expansion of the material) X (Length of the Material) X (Change in Temperature of the material)” – If the length were a very large value as in the tectonic plates; the temperature change could be small value yet there can be a significant change in length. Not to get into numbers but; I later used 0.310 Celsius and 2000Km with Granite as the plate material and found approximately 6 meters of change in length, while the plates only move several centimeters in a year.
You are probably thinking: Water is most dense at 4 degrees Celsius and the Oceans are much too deep for the currents to bring warming water to their depths. The Southern portion of the South China Sea has a large body 2000Km in length that is no deeper that 50m, while the warming surface water in the Pacific is consistently warming water to 1500 meters deep. The South China Sea has been experiencing some of the worlds most severe temperature change. It is similar to a bay on a lake; having less mass in comparison to the lake the bay freezes first in the winter and thaws first in the summer. If we can compare the Pacific Ocean to a lake and in turn the South China Sea to a bay connected to the lake: We can see that the South China Sea would greater change in temperature given the same climate change as the atmosphere covering the Pacific Ocean. Lakes and bays make a perfect model, suggesting that a 0.310 Celsius change in temperature may be conservative as that is an estimate for the Oceans.
I understand that rock movement due to very large earthquakes showed rock movement of approximately six meters. If created by plate movement alone this could take 200 years; however by warming 2000 Km of tectonic plate by only 0.310 Celsius thermal expansion man can produce a major earthquake in 30 short years.
This theory suggests that global warming due to greenhouse gases has produced the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami that killed so many people in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia in 2004 rather than about 200 years from now. The number of Earthquakes of over a 4.0 magnitude off the coast of Indonesia on the Convergent Boundaries of the Southeastern Portion of the Eurasian Plate has increased every year from 1973 when there were 331 earthquakes to 2358 in 2004 and rising.
Please visit my web page at: http://www.tectonicplates.ca
At the bottom of the web page I have the annual Earthquake data for the Southeastern Portion of the Eurasian Plate (Off the coast of Indonesia.) since 1973; from the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Database This data indicates a dramatic increase in earthquake activity for this area in the last thirty years; coinciding with the dramatic increase in global water temperatures over the last 30 years.
I understand that when you look at it from the scientific side, it doesn’t appear to be increasing per say. I am not a scientist and will not pretend to be.
However, being a lay person, I’ve been watching quake activity for a while now. Earthquakes are popping up in areas that do not usually have them. If you look at the area surrounding Yellowstone (I’m talking 100′s if not thousand of miles of surrounding area) you can see activity has increased. The impact of natural disasters has increased significantly over the past decade or two. As I said I’m not a scientist, but I think sometimes scientist miss things because they are too analytical. To me it’s obvious that something is going on with the Earth. The bottom line is, be prepared.
Earthquakes are popping up in areas that do not usually have them. If you look at the area surrounding Yellowstone (I’m talking 100?s if not thousand of miles of surrounding area) you can see activity has increased.
One would expect that Yellowstone and the surrounding areas would be seismically active because it sits directly above a magmatic hotspot.
Tell Japan – don’t worry, it happens all the time!
It’s nothing to be concerned about until it happens to you.
I think that’s a completely unfair response and mischaracterizes the argument. It’s not that people living in seismically active locations should “not worry,” it’s that normal people concerned about earthquakes and the world ending should not worry.
The silence right now is deafening….
Since we like math so much, let us look at 2011….
We are 1/4 of the way through the year.
We have had our 1 of 1 >9.0 Magnitude EQ…
We have had 7 of the average 15 (8.0-8.9) EQ
We have had 99 of the average 134 (7.0-7.9) EQ
We have had 845 of the average 1319 (6.0-6.9) EQ
Are we on track to have 2-3 more > 9.0?
Perhaps 2x the average of (8.0-8.9)?
Maybe 3x the average of (7.0-7.9)?
Only 2.5x the average of (6.0-6.9)?
I find this to be profound, frankly, and find it also very disturbing that you will find many websites disclaiming any notion that we are facing an increase in geological activity right now.
You might ask why…. Well, Jupiter, the largest body inside our solar system besides the sun, with a huge gravitational and magnetic fields, happens to be at its perihelion, or closest portion of its orbit to the sun. This means that the Earth is also impacted by this large external influence.
I view it as irresponsible to keep peddling the notion that everything is normal and fine, even as we have places like Haiti, Chile and now Japan torn to shreds, with all the claims that none of this is predictable. Hogwash!
-Ken
Not sure where you’re getting your numbers from. It makes me highly suspect of your arguments. From the USGS earthquake database, here are the current numbers through April 6, 2011:
M9.0+: 1
M8.0 – M8.9: 0
M7.0 – M7.9: 7
M6.0 – M6.9: 99*
* Many of the earthquakes in the magnitude 6 range are aftershocks of the T?hoku earthquake in Japan — which one would expect for an earthquake of such an incredible magnitude. So, yes. We’ll probably have higher than average numbers this year, but it will remain well within the the expected range.
The tragedy and magnitude of the earthquakes in populated places such as Haiti, Chile, Christchurch, and Japan have nothing to do with humanity’s tendency to recognize patterns in things that directly affect us.
Also, your Jupiter argument makes no sense. Currently, it’s actually getting farther away from Earth. Jupiter and Earth were at their closest back in September of 2010.
So, yes. I maintain that we are not seeing an increase in geological activity.
Funny thing is that I got my data from the USGS website, and now most of that data is changed. I looked today, and many of the tables have zeroed out ALL 2011 statistics. Very curious. I did not make up those numbers, and I know you were not accusing me of that. However, we seem to be pulling different numbers from the same source.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php
All zeroes now…. except for the 28,558 deaths.
If your numbers are correct, then life is good. If my numbers are correct, then we have something serious to talk about.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2011/03/is-solar-activity-to-blame-for.shtml
Contrary to this the rise in Kp indices, E-flux and Proton flux, as well as Xray
flux, leads to the occurrence of earthquakes.
http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/8/12/7736/pdf
thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquakes_in_2011
This table matches what I got from USGS just a couple days ago.
But I think I see the error….. The USGS table may have been zeroed out for correction. I see that the Wikipedia table lumps 8.0-9.9 on one data line, and I think that the USGS table may have moved everything they listed 2 days ago in the 8.0-8.9 range back down to the 7.0-7.9 range. This is a huge change and I think you can admit that based on what I was reading, I had cause to be alarmed, while the adjusted numbers make more sense.
I still feel that we HAVE seen an increase in activity and energy released, but feelings may not be discussing. The numbers were worth discussing, until they revised them.
Thanks!
Do u still think this?
Japan Turkey New Zealand New York D.C.????
Large earthquakes are composites of smaller ones. Contemporary geology doesn’t admit to synergy affecting magnitudes but then how could it?
Earthquakes seem to be related to anticyclonic singularities (Blocking Highs)
These always show up in the North Atlantic in time for a forecast to be made about biggish ones:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.geo.earthquakes/browse_frm/thread/5616391dc6c14634#
and:
http://my.opera.com/Weatherlawyer/blog/2011/11/06/earthquakes-room-101
*******
Back to the OP:
The problem with statistics is they tend to obscure cycles and there is a strong element of cyclical phenomena with the weather and subsequent events.
What is certain is that earthquakes are far less mysterious and frightening than they once were. And yes they are being reported in one place after another just as the good lord said they would be.
He never mentioned statistics.
However he did mention that it might be possible to forecast mountain replanting. Or bits thereof?
http://www.cfnews13.com/article/news/2011/november/340064/NASA-watching-asteroid-as-it-flies-past-Earth-in-close-encounter-Tuesday
But what would a mere excellent geomancer cum thaumaturge know about such things?
Just an addendum to may first last:
After the Banda Atjeh quake there was an exceedingly long list of 5 to 7 mag quakes blotting out almost everything else on the NEIC list. But they seem to have disappeared from the catalogues.
Is that for brevity or some such?
Funny thing is that I got my data from the USGS website, and now most of that data is changed. I looked today, and many of the tables have zeroed out ALL 2011 statistics. Very curious. I did not make up those numbers, and I know you were not accusing me of that. However, we seem to be pulling different numbers from the same source.