Yesterday, my wife's sister shared on facebook a screen capture of people talking about the earthquake in China. The top of the list was a twitter user saying "is it just me or are these 5.0+ quakes coming more frequently" (paraphrasing). Her response "people are finally seeing what's coming" (not paraphrasing).
Initially, this pissed me off because there is no increase in earthquakes. But my wife made me proud when she noticed a nuance. "People are finally seeing what's coming," as though her sister had some superior knowledge of how the world works.
We went to the USGS (United States Geological Survey) website and told her that 2012 only saw 16,667 earthquakes, which was beneath the annual average of the decade before.
She sent my wife an SMS of a screen capture of a random article explaining how earthquakes are on the rise.
I went into research mode and found the article myself. It can be found here:
http://www.cogwriter.com/earthquakes-today.php
The screen capture began with the section about Roger Meyers and ended with Earthquake dangers seem to be rising. So it ignored the proposal by the author that human activity could be a factor in some of the earthquakes. It ignored the listing of the three deadliest earthquakes in history that unintentionally showed that even the three deadliest earthquakes were less destructive than the one listed before (they are in order chronologically).
She also ignored the COGWriter is a man named Bob Thiel, who is a member of the Church of God, which means she shouldn't be on that page anyway.
My wife sent a text asking for the article's link and got no response. She asked her sister who Roger Meyers was, because neither of us could find him, though the article presents him as a voice worth listening to. My wife got no response.
So I wrote a detailed breakdown for her sister and we sent her a pdf.
I used the USGS site to show her the following information:
Between 1990 and 1999, seismic activity averaged 19,678.2 earthquakes annually.
Magnitude 8.0 - 9.9 saw .6 annually.
Magnitude 7.0 - 7.9 saw 14.7 annually.
Information found here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/info_1990s.php
Between 2000 and 2009, seismic activity averaged 27,219 earthquakes annually (an annual increase of 7540.8).
Magnitude 8.0 - 9.9 saw 1.4 annually (an increase of .8).
Magnitude 7.0 - 7.9 saw 15.4 annually (an increase of .7).
Information found here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php
I gave her these (true) statistics for a reason. Jehovah's Witnesses LOOOOOOOOOOOVE to be right. She would keep reading if she felt it would only confirm her argument. This is important, because she wasn't right.
Also on the USGS site is an article dated January 9th, 2013 asking the question Are Earthquakes on the Rise?
This information can be found here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/increase_in_earthquakes.php
The article states an answer for this:
"We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.
A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite. This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes."
If you read Bob Thiel's (COGWriter) article and this USGS article, you notice something similar:
Thiel: "Based on records kept since 1900, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) expects a yearly total of 17 major earthquakes and one great earthquake."
USGS: "According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 - 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year. "
This line is only used once anywhere on the USGS website and it's the closing line to the article that explains that we are not having an increase in earthquakes, just a better perception of them. Mr. Thiel blatantly ignored this clarification in an effort to further his argument.
And what of Roger Meyers? At first, I thought it was a typo for Robert Meyers, who is the EiC for Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science, a publication many researchers for the USGS have written for.
But further study and research showed me that it is indeed Roger Meyers, whose article can be found here:
http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/node/5299
Mr. Meyers is a random contributor to Tomorrows World. His seemingly sensible writing had him published though he has no connection to Geological Studies. Meyers cites many large, noteable quakes that made the news in the years but disregards the hundreds of thousands of earthquakes big and small that occur annually. One could think the point of Meyer's contribution was to discuss only the noteable quakes, but the very last paragraph shows his intention:“ Many people have heard of the Mt. Olivet prophecy when Jesus described events leading up to His second coming. In that prophecy, Christ mentions "earthquakes in different places" (Matthew 24:7) as being part of "the beginning of sorrows" (v. 8) He then goes on to describe other happenings which will occur in the few short years immediately preceding His return – events which parallel the events described in the book of Revelation.”
Correlation between earthquake frequency and the prophecies of Jesus. Funny how Bob Thiel never cited his source for Roger Meyers or made mention of this paragraph, despite it being written directly after the two paragraphs being cited.
To close out my statement to my wife's sister, I refered her to the 2000-2012 stats on the USGS site to pay focus to 2012.
16,667 is 10,552 fewer quakes than the annual average of the 2000-2009 decade.
16,667 is 4,910 fewer than 2010 and 5,622 fewer than 2011.
These numbers show that there is no evidence to support the claim that the number of earthquakes is increasing, but it is evidence enough to show the sporadic nature of our planet.
Her sister never wrote back.