Credit USGS
March has its first major quake (mag 6 or higher)—A magnitude of 6.7 south of New Zealand, see the image above. It is only the 17th major quake, (mag 6 or higher) in 2024 with only four being reported in the whole of February. . . By this time last year, 28 major quakes had been reported so you can say it's a slow start to the year, especially when you consider the incredible amount of solar activity we have witnessed this year. (Solar activity is thought to cause seismic activity here on Earth, according to some scientists)
Mag 5s fair no better with the same period last year—291 in 2023 compared to 239 in 2024. Since the first of November last year 45 major quakes have been recorded and all but 4 have been recorded around the Pacific Ring Of Fire.
The last major quake to hit the West coast of North America was a shallow (7km deep) mag 6.0 SW of Port McNeill, Canada on 2023-04-13.
Possible Interrelations of Space Weather and Seismic Activity
As I mentioned above, Solar activity is thought to cause seismic activity here on Earth, according to some scientists at least, well, a new paper has just been released suggesting just that—Possible Interrelations of Space Weather and Seismic Activity: An Implication for Short-term Earthquake Prediction.
Abstract:
Abstract
The statistical analysis of [the] impact of the top 50 solar flares of X-class (1997-2023) on the global seismic activity, as well as on the earthquake preparation zones located in [an] illuminated part of the globe and in the area of 5000 km radius around the subsolar point was carried out. It is shown by a method of epoch superposition that for all cases the increase of seismicity is observed, especially in the region around the subsolar point (up to 38%) during 10 days after the solar flare in comparison with [the] preceding 10 days. The case study of [the] aftershock sequence of strong M=9.1 earthquake (Su-matra-Andaman Islands, 26.12.2004) after the solar flare of X7.2 class (20.01.2005) demonstrated that the number of aftershocks with magnitude M≥2.5 increases more than 20 times after the solar flare with a delay of 7 days. For the case of the Darfield earthquake (M=7.1, 04.09.2010, New Zealand) it was shown that strong solar flares of class X and M probably triggered two strong aftershocks (M>6) with the same delay of 6 days on the Port Hills fault, which is the most sensitive to external electromagnetic impact from point of view of the fault electrical conductivity and orientation. Based on the obtained results the possible application of natural electromagnetic triggering of earthquakes is discussed for a short-term earthquake prediction using confidently recorded strong external electromagnetic triggering impacts on the specific earthquake preparation zones, as well as ionospheric perturbations due to aerosol emission from the earthquake sources recorded by satellites.
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