Did You Feel That?

Since 2010 the world has been rocked by what seems liked one devastating earthquake after another. In a little over a months time the richest & poorest countries in Latin America have been hit by terrible earthquakes. First the Solomon Islands were struck with a 7.1 magnitude quake on January 3rd and then Haiti was ripped apart by a 7.0 quake on January 12th. Chile, the richest country in Latin America according to GDP per capita, closed out the end of February with an astonishing 8.8 magnitude earthquake. Shortly after Turkey was challenged with an earthquake that came in at 6.1 on the Richter scale. Though it occurred off shore of northern California, there was also a 6.5 earthquake which struck on January 10th. So is the world getting ready to shake us into oblivion? Is this a boding sign of things to come? Lets take a look at the history of earthquakes and dig a little deeper. It is estimated that we have about 500,000 detectable earthquakes each year around the globe. Of those, 100,000 may be felt by humans and 100 cause damage. So one thing that can be predicted is a 100% chance that somewhere today there will be an earthquake, no matter what day today may be. Seismologists also expect to see about 18 earthquakes a year of a strong magnitude and one great which is 8.0 or higher. Over a period of 500 years earthquakes follow a fairly stable pattern and that is exactly what we are continuing to see currently. So why does it seem like we are having an influx of earth shaking events? Maybe because we are. The fact is earthquakes cluster. According to Marcia McNutt, director of the USGS, We know earthquakes are not uniformly distributed in time; they cluster. Now suddenly the quakes are lighting up again. This recent string of events does not seem to surprise anyone in the earthquake community because the behavior is consistent with what has been documented before. Although there isnt the storm of earthquakes that is presented on the media, there is still a very real chance of a big one hitting the U.S. within the next 50 years. According to McNutt of the USGS, Its not a matter of if, only when an event like this strikes the people of the U.S. Shame on us if we dont prepare. The most volatile areas for this activity are on the west coast, Seattle area, Alaska and California are all threatened areas. The last mega quake was in 1700 and was 9.0 in magnitude. Locally, there is more concern with the New Madrid fault which runs along the Mississippi river from Illinois to Arkansas. A large earthquake on this fault would have seismic waves that reached south western Ohio in less than 1.5 minutes. The last quakes of such strength were in 1811-12 over the winter. Here in Ohio the strongest earthquake on record is from Anna, OH. This event registered at a 5.4 and occurred in western Ohio on March 9th 1937. Since then most earthquake activity has remained in the far north east counties, like Lake County and in the western Ohio area, on a very small scale. Another reason we have noticed more of these earthquakes occurring could be that currently there are 4,000 seismograph stations world-wide transmitting data faster than ever, while in 1931 there were only 350 stations and information traveled a lot slower. By the time news reached areas not affected by an earthquake it was already old news not something that would make the front page of the paper. Interestingly enough, according to the USGS we have actually seen a slight decrease in the number of 7.0 or above earthquakes in recent history. In the words of British Geological Survey seismologist Richard Luckett The point is that earthquakes are common & always have been. In fact from 1975-

1995 there were only 4 US states that didnt experience an earthquake; Florida, Iowa, North Dakota and Wisconsin. All of these things point to one conclusion, expect earth quakes to happen & do your best to be prepared, but dont worry about the sky falling down tomorrow.