Whole lota shakin' goin' on

[Nosi]

It seems like there are a large number of quakes going on. Haiti, China, Chile, Japan, and California have all had moderate to very large quakes recently. Yes, I am looking at Chile when I say very large quakes.

Some of them have had very large losses of human life: The geological event in Haiti was a bit smaller, but more poorly prepared Haitians were hit very hard. And then there was the tsunami that hit during Christmas morning in 2004.

Is it because there is more life to be lost with larger populations, more information flying around the big blue marble, or is there something geologically going on within our itchy, scratchy Earth?

 

[Bikewer]

An "earth scientist" on NPR this morning said it was fairly simple....Huge increase in population in many areas...Moving into crowded, poorly planned, poorly built cities which happen to be adjacent to fault zones.
The Earth is always moving.

 

[Matthew Best]

The Earth is always moving.

That's what she said.

 

[Skeptic]

Why am I thinking of Jack Williamson's short story "Born of the Sun" all of a sudden?

 

[I Ratant]

The LA area gets those damned things without extreme casualties because the building codes require properly constructed buildings, and the population is spread out in low-rise housing for the most part.
The Chilean quake is said to be 500 times stronger than any we've had here!
Good GOD... even those little things are way scary!

 

[Nosi]

An "earth scientist" on NPR this morning said it was fairly simple....Huge increase in population in many areas...Moving into crowded, poorly planned, poorly built cities which happen to be adjacent to fault zones.
The Earth is always moving.

Well, the fact the Internet, which is packed with Woos, will not freaking shut up, is not helping my nerves. Even the relatively safe sites are full of Woos. I'm looking at MyLot...(A website where I go to earn a few cents extra for dibs and dabs for my various little extras I like to buy such as socks).

 

[shadron]

On the average a RS8+ earthquake happens once a year, worldwide. Also eighteen RS7 earthquakes. There's nothing particularly odd about this sequence; just that it happened in two relatively built-up areas. The same day there were several small quakes in central California and one in Oklahoma. Again, nothing unusual.