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points

by CookieCrisp7 hours ago |

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by HaloZero5 hours ago|

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Yeah, I looked this up and USGS literally has a page about this.

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/why-are-we-having-so-many-or-so-fe...

According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 16 major earthquakes in any given year. That includes 15 earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range and one earthquake magnitude 8.0 or greater. In the past 40-50 years, our records show that we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes about a dozen times.

You can see a map of ALL the 7+ here:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-89.0318...

The search filtering is a bit hard to find in the UI but the parameters in the URL can be modified. (We had 16+ 7.0 last year as a comparison)

by astrobe_3 hours ago|

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I've always wondered if the melting of glaciers would move masses from one place to another and induce some tectonic moves. But the mass is most likely not significant enough; water/ice has a relatively low density after all.

by dev1ycan3 hours ago|

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It's more likely related to planetary positions and or solar cycle/activity, "recent studies suggest a notable statistical correlation between specific solar magnetic milestones and the shifting phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation"

Like in theory it doesn't make sense that el niño causes earthquakes, yet there seems to be more prominent ones during el niño however if both are related to sun cycle/activity it would make more sense (seeing how the moon affects earth as well)

by smolder2 hours ago|

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The deep earth isn't all that well studied, so while we know a fair amount about plate tectonics, there could be hidden factors influencing that action in ways we can't anticipate from recorded history. Who's to say there aren't 1000 or 10k year cycles of earthquakes? Something novel could happen too, but our records don't let us set probabilities for 10k year natural disasters the way we can with 100 year tropical storms, floods, or earthquakes.

by defrost1 hours ago|

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> Who's to say there aren't 1000 or 10k year cycles of earthquakes?

The Stratigraphy department of the International Union of Geological Sciences would be the obvious first port of call.

Follow that up with an off book chat with digital archivists for commercial oil and gas exploration geologists.

by Melatonic1 hours ago|

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Or influence by the moon just as it pulls on oceans. Lot of liquid magma down there.

Or maybe some once in a rare incident involving coronal mass ejections somehow affecting the core of the planet. Could even be a delayed effect.

by teacpde7 hours ago|

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Yea, feel like a lot of big ones this year, but looking it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_2026 it is actually not necessarily worse than previous years.

by marcosdumay4 hours ago|

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Given we are barely beyond half of the year, that puts us close to the outlier that was 2023 in the 7+ range.

2023 also had a strong el-niño event.

by ortusdux7 hours ago|

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76 quakes ranking 7.0+ so far this decade, including 10 this year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_2021%E2%80...

by keeda4 hours ago|

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Sure feels like it in my corner of the Bay Area, since we had a prolonged earthquake swarm earlier this year, even hitting a record number of earthquakes per day or something like that.

by beloch5 hours ago|

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Earthquakes can occur in swarms[1] (distinct from aftershocks), with many of a similar size (i.e. Not a big quake followed by smaller ones) occurring in a small area over "relatively short" periods of time (i.e. days, weeks, or years).

The USGS map shows the 7.7 quake being followed by about 19 other smaller quakes near or in Indonesia within just a few hours. These are probably aftershocks.

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_swarm

by jeffrwells6 hours ago|

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HN highlighting a lot this year, is all

by kermatt7 hours ago|

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I was wondering the same: https://www.morageology.com/earthquake_year.php

by LeBit7 hours ago|

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> Note: While it may look like there have been an increase in total number of earthquakes since about 2020, this is actually due to the increasing number of seismic stations installed in the park since 2020 that are able to detect smaller (<= 0.5 magnitude) earthquakes. If you look at the number of earthquakes >= 1.0, the rate has remained about the same.

by jwilber5 hours ago|

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Somehow I don’t think people are confusing raw seismic station earthquake counts with the three back-to-back high profile/magnitude earthquakes that recently occurred in Venezuela, Colombia, and Indonesia.

I understand the point, maybe those recent earthquakes aren’t ood, but still.

by Melatonic1 hours ago|

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There are also likely a lot of earthquakes we don't notice because they don't effect populated areas. There's a lot of ocean around the ring of fire.

by goda907 hours ago|

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Why does this page say there have been 0 >2.5mag earthquakes this year?

by teraflop6 hours ago|

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