Earthquake Averages On Track in 2012?

Hey ATS...

Just did a bit of fact finding just for fun to see if we are being hyper sensitive to quakes this year. Are there really more quakes or are we just paying more attention?

If you look at the news, or site like ATS, you would think the world was really going to end as it is just shaking and rumbling and getting ready to fall apart!

I have linked this article in the past, as I found it well researched (it is from 2010) -
daveschumaker.net...

Per year averages seem to come in around these numbers -

8 + - 1 per year
7- 7.9 - 17 per year
6- 6.9 - 134 per year
5 - 5.9 - 1319 per year

I checked the Wikipedia page for Earthquakes in 2012 and they seem to confirm these numbers -
en.wikipedia.org...

So other than being one higher in the 8 plus category, and even if we add the latest 7.2 earthquake from Indonesia, we are still under the yearly averages (14 this year) in the 7 to 7.9 category.

Actually, if we take a look at 2010, we had 21 earthquakes in the 7 to 7.9 range, well above the yearly norm but 2012 seems to be fairly normal in terms of earthquake activity.

Just wondering if other people have found the same. If there is evidence pointing to the opposite, please let me know!

Thanks!

I haven't seen many posted here over the last couple of months. If anything, they have slowed down this year. That must be a good sign though..

Originally posted by wrdwzrd
Just wondering if other people have found the same.

One of our members, Puterman, keeps an eye on such things and posted a thread on it recently.
As you noticed, the general trend for this year seems to be "perfectly normal" but slightly LOWER than average.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

inb4 the proverbial "perhaps its the calm before the storm"

I do wonder if a quiet year is a good thing or not. Surely better to have good frequencies of smaller quakes releasing built up stresses than a build up of pressure leading to an eventual huge quake.

Well, that's good that they are on track, we wouldn't want them to derail.

reply to post by wrdwzrd


Quit raining on my DOOM PARADE!!

J/K

Here's some numbers from the last 30 days:
One mag 6.0
Three mag 6.1
Two mag 6.2
Two mag 6.3
Two mag 6.5
One mag 6.8
One mag 7.1
One mag 7.3
USGS Last 30 days mag 6.0>

Edit: Nevermind my meager numbers; all hail Puterman.

Ok so all in all, 2012 is a pretty average year for earthquakes, I guess we'll see what the rest of December holds!

I was just looking at some earthquake frequencies myself. I have a question that I'm sure has an answer but it seems odd to me.

If you look at the USGS website here, you can see their frequencies for earthquakes world-wide and in USA.

At the bottom of each chart is "no-magnitude" quakes. What exactly are no magnitude? Are they just quakes below .1?

The reason I ask is because of the astounding drop offs on the chart for no-mag quakes.

For the years 2000 - 2012 worldwide: no-magnitude quakes
2000: 3120
2001: 2807
2002: 2938
2003: 3608
2004: 2939
2005: 864
2006: 828
2007: 1807
2008: 1922
2009: 17
2010: 24
2011: 11
2012: 3 ???

What happened? If you click back through the charts for the 90's the numbers range from 1826 to 5054 no-mag quakes per year. No big drop offs.

The same is true if you look at the USA's chart for 2000-2012 as well. It begins around the 400's and then ends at 8 in 2011 and 3 in 2012.

It seems the 1.0-1.9 mags go from the thousands to double digits from 2000-2012 for worldwide.

I'm sure there is a reason for this, I'm guessing some sort of technological advancements or something. Just curious what this is all about.

Edit:

Nevermind, I'm a dummy. The USGS stopped monitoring earthquakes below 4.5 mag worldwide starting in 2009. Hence the large drop off. They only note ones that were felt and had some kind of damage. I guess that doesn't explain the slope in the USA quakes, though.