Bigger Earthquakes Increasing

November 17, 2008
By Holly Deyo

One USGS database lets you enter the size and date range to plot any quakes worldwide. The data goes back to 1973. However, even with 35 years of stats, we see that earthquakes are increasing — and so is the devastation.

USGS frequently puts forth a "better monitoring" argument to explain increasing earthquakes. This statement is true IF you're talking about quakes smaller than Richter 6. Richter 6 is the seismic Maginot Line — the magnitude where less sensitive equipment isn't always capable of picking up seismic activity. However, larger events of mag. 6 and greater are felt over too wide an area and can inflict too much damage to conceal, and would be picked up by weaker seismometers.

Another surprised showed up on home turf. Normally on USGS maps you'll see from 750 up to 900 quakes on any given day. However May 3 of this year saw a whopping 1,482 shakers. August 8 brought a second high count showing 1,345 earthquakes.

It's not just earthquakes. Tornadoes, too, have exploded this year. May presented an extraordinarily high number of U.S. quakes.

Natural disasters are large events by definition - hardly something even the best scientists can hide, no matter how hard the Bush administration tried to silence them. This again may be government's clumsy attempt to keep what's really going on quiet and the credible scientists muzzled. Here a few examples:

This fits with the cumulative data, that natural disasters, overall, are increasing and there's simply no masking the upward trend.