EARTHQUAKES: An analysis indicating increasing frequency and severity

I appreciate the research and effort put forth by the OP, but to only look at such a small time period of the total life of the planet doesn't present a whole picture. 1970-present only gives us a minute snapshot of the situation.

Even the graph that Phage posted shows only the 1900s-present, which while a bit more representative, still doesn't show what happened say 2000 years ago.

Good thread Tauristercus - star for you.

Aside from the debate that post 1991 there were more stations to record data, how about examining further your theory on extraction of resources / building
and its effects when done rapidly ?

Wasn't 1991 also the beginning of a new boom era ? In such times to cope with demand more and more is extracted from the core as well as added to its surface in the form of construction.

In the last 18 months drilling and construction must have slowed somewhat with the credit crisis etc , yet the earthquakes have not ...

I'm not sure if the above could be relevent to your debate , but just wanted to throw it into the mix.

First off, let me state that on the whole I have been very impressed with your analytical posts. On stuff like the Norway spiral I was not competent to judge your method or findings; however here, I most definitively am as data crunching is what I do for a living.

I too had considered doing such an analysis, but was stopped because I could not figure any way to control for the confounding variables posters cited above me (specifically an increased number of monitors and their increasing sensitivity). Without such a control, your base data is suspect. I would start by looking through the literature for some type of statistic that states something along the lines of "In 19XX, our new process allowed an increase in sensitivity of X%" or something like that.

Then, you will want to throw your data set into Excel and produce a "run chart". THIS is the only way (other than control charts, which are even harder to interpret) you can meaningfully say if there has been a sustained change. The rules for interpretation are fairly straightforward and can be found many places on the net, and w/ someone of your mind set I think it would be a valuable new tool in your arsenal regardless.

Lastly, to prove your theory you need to provide something that suggests correlation/causation. Here, I'm thinking you need to map out all the >6's per year, over a map of some of the areas w/ activities you think are connected. Look for big dams, oil extraction, deep mining efforts, etc. Your maps should probably also have the major fault lines on them, so you can analyze whether the quakes are still happening just on fault lines or if they are more associated w/ human activity, and if so what type. You might also run sub-analyses per region to see if areas w/ large amounts of human activity have really changed in those areas since it started, compared to the rates of control areas where there is not a lot of human activity.

Please take this criticism in the intent given, I have nothing but respect for your quest for truth. It's just that at this point, you haven't quite got all your ducks in a row to be able to make the assertions you have. U2U me, and I would be happy to collaborate on the data crunching aspects.

Best of luck!

If you want to isolate trends over time where sampling methods change you have to set a base sample requirement met for all data.

So you need a sample method uniform to all times. So look at old stations.

For example, if a region has 10 stations in 1970 and 50 in 1990, of course you will see far more quakes in addition to more accurate magnitudes and locations.

Until you make your sampling universal over time all you have done is shown that we are indeed seeing a rise in DATA.

It is a good start but will not in any way effect my scientific or logical understanding of the world nor influence the bulk of people out there. Which is fine, if you seek to "prove" something to other ATS'ers only. Even here though a lot of us will not sign on to such conclusions.

For those of use with experience in the sciences, we will just applaud the good intentions and suggest ways in which you can find a truth. You write as if you seek the truth. So far the most logical and reliable analysis that I have seen shows no increase over the last century.

If you would like to see the most logical description of what is going on with the earth, and see it for yourself, then isolate data-sets from single old stations and build up from their.

Glad to see other truth seekers! Just remember, the truth is something you do not know... using logic and information, you can learn. If you already "know something" than trying to prove it to yourself will be easy, proving it to others will be much harder.

reply to post by tauristercus

As more and more seismographs are installed in the world, more earthquakes can be and have been located. However, the number of large earthquakes (magnitude 6.0 and greater) has stayed relatively constant

That statement is probably based on the statistics given on that same page:
those for earthquakes of 5-6.9 are from 1990 onward and those for earthquakes of 7 and higher are based from 1900 onward.

It is not a matter of improved technology as much as more technology. There are more seismometers in more places. Remember, the database records located earthquakes. It takes at least three seismometers to locate an earthquake.



We have had the technology for a long time to locate a 7.0 earthquake anywhere on the planet. A 6.0 earthquake is far less powerful and not as easy to locate. A 6.0 earthquake far from any seismometers would not be locateable.

At best we can say we have insufficient data to determine if there actually has been an increase in lower magnitude earthquakes.

reply to post by tauristercus


Decent work done even though it doesn't make everybody happy. I too think/feel that there's more earthquake activity.

Seems like I hear a re-occuring theme when it comes to debunking these types of threads. Time and amount of data. When will it be enough for some people to let themselves allow the possibility of a trend??

Hope the OP keeps this thread going and updated. Definitely S+F from me.

BTW... Another 7.8 can be added to your list for the Sumatra quake that happen this evening.

reply to post by tauristercus


Well done for pointing this out as it adds fuel to the controversy as to whether earthquake activity is on the increase.
In my opinion, you would have to be in serious denial to discount the glaring evidence of more than 800 earthquakes happening in a given 20 year period when compared to the previous 20 year period. Don't need to be a statistician to see that something very unusual is happening and the supporting evidence is clear and plainly 'in your face' !

S&F for the time and effort

I have a rather basic question.

Why is it so hard to predict earthquakes?

I would think once you knew the type of rock, temp and location, it would just be a matter of mathematical calculations.

So what do we not know?

Great article on the history of recording earthquakes with figures I'm sure some of you could put to good use

In 1985, the period on which ISC is now working, about 1,400 stations reported each month, the largest events being reported by about 700 stations.

publishing.cdlib.org...

For pre-1970 analysis you could go through this database of over 6,000 quakes going way back.


earthquakedb.com...

[edit on 11-4-2010 by MoorfNZ]

Tauristercus I find your presentation very informative and very professionally put forth, but possibly skewed to not really showing the real truth.

First of all your title was called "EARTHQUAKES: An analysis indicating increasing frequency and severity".

Then you produced two charts of two different sets of earthquake magnitudes, the 6s and the 7s; which by the way was excellent.

But....

You only used a very short time frame which skewed your information from what the general public would have really taken as for a very long period of time. You used the time frame of 1970 to the present in your excellent presentation. So... Your title would be accurate and your presentation would be accurate if you would have made the title:

EARTHQUAKES: An analysis indicating increasing frequency and severity from the time period starting in 1970 to the present.

But somehow your presentation makes the reader think that you are trying to prove that your analysis indicates that earthquakes are increasing in frequency and severity over a much larger time period; and that would be incorrect to lead the readers to believe that.

As Phage presented in his excellent chart that he created from USGS data that goes back further than 1970s, going back to 1900 it shows a true representation of earthquake activity for earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range. His short but accurate presentation actually debunks your presentation over the 1900 to present time period.

Should you be able to present a chart similar to Phage's over the same time period (1900 to present) showing that the magnitude 6 range of earthquakes increased over that complete period of time (1900 to present), then your presentation would look better; but I doubt that you would be able to pull up a chart of the 6s from 1900 to present to make your otherwise excellent presentation look less skewed. I suspect that the 6s from 1900 to present look as though there is no real increase in frequency and severity.

On the other hand... people are creating earthquakes that people before our time never created; simply because of the mining, extraction of fluids like oil and building of huge dams.

I believe you are trying to make a presentaton to show that some of what is occurring in the realm of earthquakes is from mankind creating earthquakes and that man made earthquakes are becoming more frequent and dangerous.

It's the far future that mankind should be taking care of. In the far future there will be terrible earthquakes because of what mankind is currently doing. Terrible earthquakes of greater frequency will occur in the far future when all of us have passed on because mankind did not plug all of the old useless oil wells from the very bottom to the top; instead 20 or so feet of pipe is plugged near the surface.

There are many oil fields in areas with aquifers that have oil pipes extending up through the aquifer fields. Here in this area the top of the aquifers are only down about 10 to 20 feet. Old iron oil well pipes extend down through the bed of water which is 100 to 200 feet deep in many places. When these old abandoned oil well pipes finally rust through, a hundred to hundreds of years from now, the water from the aquifers will flow down inside of the empty pipes and the pressure alone from a water column extending down over 2000 feet and striking the rock formation far below will cause terrible earthquakes in the regions of the aquifers and other regions at great distances.

All old oil well pipes need to be filled from the top to the bottom to stop this catastrophe of the future from happening. This is a catastrophe that mankind cannot believe that is waiting to occur. The pressure from a column of water over 2000 feet in depth will be more than enough to create some serious pressure and some serious earthquakes, especially since mankind won't be able to stop it once it starts, or to be able to figure out which pipe is causing it. The problem is, is that there are 10s of thousands of these pipes all over the world, and they all need to be filled from top to bottom when production has ceased or when the well is abandoned.

I didn't mean to change direction of your topic here in the latter paragraphs, but I wanted people to realize that there are going to be countless catastropic earthquakes in the far future if mankind doesn't use an ounce of prevention now. I make all of these latter acknowledgements due to my knowledge of how to detect earthquakes of all magnitudes before they strike and how to forecast them accurately anywhere in the world.

www.youtube.com...

During my decades of detecting earthquakes before they have struck, due to all magnitudes of terrestrial originated earthquakes having precursor pulses that are detectable due to rocks releasing energy and radiation, and the fact that my equipment shows mankinds earthquakes as well as Earths natural earthquakes; I was able to postulate that far in the future countless man made massive earthquakes will strike if old oil well pipes aren't plugged from top to bottom instead of 10 to 20 feet of it at the top.


[edit on 11-4-2010 by RussianScientists]

Originally posted by MoorfNZ
For pre-1970 analysis you could go through this database of over 6,000 quakes going way back.


earthquakedb.com...

[edit on 11-4-2010 by MoorfNZ]

Wow what a great data base, way more listed than what USGS.
I had a play on the Search going by years and 7+, quite interesting.
Amazing how the locations have changed over the years eg 1855 (NZ's only 8.0 and ......... and Switzerland had a 7+.

Do you know who runs this site? what's their credability? how accurate do you think they are?

As a check I went to 1931 yes Napier quake is there, but noticed on the 1855 Wellington /Wairarapa they had the location way off, over on my side of the Tararua Mts ( Kapiti side) instead of on the western shores of Lake Wairarapa on the Wairarapa Fault.

Personally I'm more interested in WHERE they were in the past, than how many per year there were.

The deep [planet core] magma flows are changing,

causing tectonic plate instability,

and when it gets done the magnetic poles will have flipped.
That is afterall why the magnetic poles flip regularly in geological history.

Recent video.

Geophysicist from USGS answers the question - are there more/bigger quakes... on CNN.

Second video down on left.

edition.cnn.com...

[edit on 14-4-2010 by MoorfNZ]

I won't get into the earthquake counting game, BUT there is evidence that the basic premise of the OP, that human activity is causing changes is valid.

Anthropo­cene Era

The new era would be called the Anthropo­cene, from the Greek anthropos (man) and ceno (new).
“The dominance of humans has so physic­ally changed Earth that there is increasingly less justification for linking pre- and post-in­dustrialized Earth within the same epoch,” the researchers said in an announcement of their proposal.
The traditional name for our current epoch—soon to become the former one, if they have their way—is the Holocene. The Holocene has spanned the last 10,000 years and fol­lowed the Pleistocene, commonly called the Ice Age.