Have you heard about the 8.8 Earthquake that hit off the coast of Chile? 8.8!
While earthquakes are nothing out of the ordinary along the Pacific Ring of Fire I am starting to get nervous. I live in Southern California and this recent spat of earthquakes make me think California is next. Now, that could be an irrational fear. I am not a geologist and don’t know all the stats over the past several decades. Perhaps it’s entirely normal to have this many earthquakes of these magnitudes.
A part of me thinks we have some major movement ocuring along the Pacific Rim. Again, it could be totally normal. If one looked at the data it might be possible to see that this is normal activity. But I still have to wonder.
Here is a list of recent earthquakes from the USGS:
- Magnitude 8.8 OFFSHORE MAULE, CHILE February 27, 2010
- Magnitude 7.0 RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN February 26, 2010
- Magnitude 6.9 CHINA-RUSSIA-NORTH KOREA BORDER REGION February 18, 2010
- Magnitude 3.8 ILLINOIS February 10, 2010
- Magnitude 5.9 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA February 04, 2010
- Magnitude 6.2 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA February 01, 2010
- Magnitude 5.9 HAITI REGION January 20, 2010
- Magnitude 4.0 OKLAHOMA January 15, 2010
- Magnitude 7.0 HAITI REGION January 12, 2010
- Magnitude 6.5 OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA January 10, 2010
- Magnitude 4.1 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA January 07, 2010
- Magnitude 6.8 SOLOMON ISLANDS January 05, 2010
- Magnitude 7.1 SOLOMON ISLANDS January 03, 2010
- Magnitude 6.6 SOLOMON ISLANDS January 03, 2010
Again is this normal and nothing to be concerned about or should countries all around the Pacific Rim take a little notice? There are a couple of outliers there – Oaklahoma and Illinois. I cannot say for certain if these could be related to the Ring of Fire or not. Probably in some way everything is connected. And there is the big Yellowstone Caldera just sitting there like a ticking time bomb.
