Just check the facts yourself, and then we can talk …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_earthquakes = 742 major earthquakes so far …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_earthquakes = 32 major earthquakes in the whole year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:E ... es_in_2008 = only 24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:E ... es_in_2007 = 20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:E ... es_in_2006 = 15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:E ... es_in_2005 = 12
THERE MUST BE SOMETHING GOING ON …
A clergyman friend of mine wrote to me with this information, it will help broaden the subject and points of view:
Christ is risen! In Truth He is risen!
Yes I thought the same thing. About one month or so ago I read an article on Fox News that asked this very question. One reason that was given was that the proliferation of tracking stations and the better coordination throughout the world which is giving better reporting.
http://www.discerningtoday.org/members/ ... quakes.htm
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 941AAmEpTA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake
Of course with everything else going on in the world one certainly starts to wonder. For us as Christians we should be ready at all times. One never knows when for us the "end of the world" will be.
Kybihetz21 wrote:I read an article on Fox News that asked this very question. One reason that was given was that the proliferation of tracking stations and the better coordination throughout the world which is giving better reporting.
Balderdash! The technology for detecting the most remote (even the smaller) earthquakes is not super advanced and has been around for many decades. Good contact with bedrock in a low-noise location is the major requirement - which is fairly easily obtained. Reporting of the data has been excellent for decades as well. Specifically, major earthquakes are just downright easy to detect with even the oldest equipment (i.e. hobbyist models made from plans in Popular Science before WWII).
Distance is also not even an issue for any moderately sized earthquake. You can detect the waves even after multiple passes around the globe. With even a handful of good seismograph locations (i.e. 5 or so like the number of satellites a GPS uses), the arrival times of the ground waves means pin-pointing the location is almost immediate and automated. All timing is based on the standard times which have been broadcast over shortwave for more than a hundred years - with atomic clock based references since the 40s-50s (now broadcast by the GPS satellites). Every day, long printouts of the locations of all the earthquakes have long been available, again, for decades. I shouldn't have wasted this much time on a FOX News statement. "They're wrong" or "Do you believe FOX?" would have sufficed.
I worked closely with the geophysicists at Indiana University for almost 20 years. It was always interesting to go down to the seismic station and look at the records (e.g. to count the nuclear underground testing being done then in Russia (denied) and then China mainly - triangulated locations were already on the event logs).
After a few years of casual observations, I finally asked the technician who handled all the reporting for her opinion about increased frequency. She said it was "undeniable." That was 20 to 25 years ago. I kept watching and asked her again in '97 before moving away, and then again on a visit back there in about 2004: 'Are they still increasing?' "Yep"
Now you can report things any number of ways in order to avoid conclusions that would be disruptive to certain perspectives (and the USGS has been accused of this), but pattern analysis, while having a less empirical output, is sometimes a better indicator. I watch signals in my work. I can see things that are not recognized by algorithms. This is typical. The human mind has no trouble discerning patterns even when the average intensity = zero. That's why a person, not a process, still needs to look at data. I trust the woman who for 30 years has been looking at the raw and tabulated data on earthquakes. She believes they are increasing - as if discernment hadn't already revealed this to us.
Expert testimony is always greatly appreciated, Father. Thank you very much for this contribution. This should remind all of us not to dismiss 'signs of the times' too lightly.