All these small earthquakes mean the big one is coming! and All these small earthquakes are relieving pressure along fault lines so they are a good occurrence. Well yes and no. Earthquakes cannot be predicted whether it is a big one or a small one, doesnt matter if they are occurring within the same few weeks or same few month, assigning and proving correlation is very uncommon. most earthquakes are completely unrelated with the exception or foreshocks and aftershocks. As for the pressure relief belief, while valid, is very misunderstood. having a 4.4 one week and then a 5.1 a few weeks later is not going to do enough to relieve pressure from fault lines. Lets take it up a notch with just a magnitude 6. For every magnitude 6 earthquake there are about 10 of magnitude 5, 100 of magnitude 4, 1,000 of magnitude 3, and so forth as the events get smaller and smaller. It would take 32 magnitude 5s, 1000 magnitude 4s, OR 32,000 magnitude 3s to equal the energy of one magnitude 6 event. So, even though we always record many more small events than large ones, there are far too few to eliminate the need for the occasional large earthquake.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 14:32:38 +0000
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