Earthquake Data Leading up to 2012 Year End

I have seen a lot of discussion about earthquake activity over the past few years and wanted to post some of the results of a study I performed using the ANSS Composite Earthquake Catalog (quake.geo.berkeley.edu...). I ran a script to check the count of how many earthquakes have occurred over the past few years including 2012 data up until this point as well as over 6.0 earthquakes. Remember that as years progress, earthquakes are more widely detected and cataloged so you have to take account for those increases.

YEAR, ToalNumberOfEarthquakes, EarthquakesOver6.0

1969 10924 85
1970 11865 108
1971 15896 111
1972 15057 101
1973 14403 95
1974 15703 97
1975 21368 111
1976 19400 109
1977 20921 85
1978 22135 91
1979 28712 89
1980 27033 97
1981 34365 77
1982 40789 70
1983 53786 95
1984 61937 63
1985 58491 80
1986 63260 69
1987 46524 85
1988 44868 73
1989 60534 67
1990 63478 88
1991 55885 84
1992 102153 95
1993 76772 123
1994 75802 137
1995 72800 171
1996 71314 164
1997 81022 135
1998 70881 124
1999 75035 134
2000 77423 161
2001 77958 138
2002 105877 138
2003 104461 156
2004 128018 156
2005 121971 150
2006 112633 153
2007 104095 196
2008 133477 180
2009 93240 161
2010 123643 174
2011 106347 223
2012 96327 140 (Includes Everything to Dec 9 2012).

The ANSS (Advanced National Seismic System) composite catalog is a world-wide earthquake catalog that is created by merging the master earthquake catalogs from contributing ANSS institutions and then removing duplicate solutions for the same event. The ANSS earthquake catalog grew out of the efforts of the CNSS (Council of the National Seismic System). It was previously called the CNSS earthquake catalog. quake.geo.berkeley.edu...

So over 80 less earthquakes this year compared to 2011 and with only a few weeks to run until 2013....I think we can safely rule out Earthquakes having anything to do with the Mayan End Calendar.

Originally posted by Just Chris
So over 80 less earthquakes this year compared to 2011 and with only a few weeks to run until 2013....I think we can safely rule out Earthquakes having anything to do with the Mayan End Calendar.

.... Or can we?




Just kidding. Great list. Nice to see a value placed on these, guess they really aren't increasing this year. Or maybe it's a build up to the "big one".

Originally posted by jough626

Originally posted by Just Chris
So over 80 less earthquakes this year compared to 2011 and with only a few weeks to run until 2013....I think we can safely rule out Earthquakes having anything to do with the Mayan End Calendar.

.... Or can we?




Just kidding. Great list. Nice to see a value placed on these, guess they really aren't increasing this year. Or maybe it's a build up to the "big one".

What like a calm before the storm kind of scenario? I'm not so sure, the stats look remarkably on the spot compared to previous years.

As far as long term numbers are concerned, there is an increase. Although, this year isn't much different than those previous to 2011.

The only way I could see earthquakes having validity to this armageddon stuff would be if an earthquake triggered Yellowstone to blow it's top.

Wow this is very disturbing!!

Back in the 70's there was only 10,000 quakes average per year....

Currently there is about 90,000 average per year.... Some years over 100,000.....

That is a 900% increase in earthquakes in the past 40 years.... That is insane!

Even the large quakes above 6.0 have doubled in the past 40 years.

Its possible that there wasn't as much data collected on earthquakes but there does seem to be an increase in earthquakes over time. I sent an email to ANSS asking whether the data collected has improved over time which has caused the numbers to appear increasing over time or if there really is increased earthquake activity as the earth ages.