Within the past several days, large earthquakes have been striking all along the outer rim of the Pacific Ocean, and many are wondering if all of this activity could potentially be building up to something really big. Those that follow my work on a regular basis know that I have been deeply concerned about seismic activity on the west coast for a long time, and scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” hits us. According to Wikipedia, approximately 81 percent of all large earthquakes take place along the Ring of Fire, and of course the west coast of North America accounts for a large stretch of it. As you can see from this map, the California and Alaska coastlines have been absolutely peppered by quakes in recent days, but nobody is really talking about these quakes because everyone is so focused on COVID-19 right now.
Yes, this pandemic deserves our attention, but I would submit that all of the unusual shaking that has been happening certainly deserves our attention as well.
You may not have heard about it yet, but a magnitude 4.5 earthquake rocked San Diego on Sunday afternoon…
A 4.5 magnitude earthquake originating in Imperial County rocked San Diegans from East Village to Lakeside on Sunday afternoon, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The quake struck at 3:07 p.m. in Imperial County about 10.5 miles southeast of Ocotillo Wells, according to the USGS. It had a depth of 10 kilometers or 6.2 miles.
That is a rather large quake for that particular area, and it is just one of hundreds that have been hitting the region. In fact, CalTech says that there have been 1,227 earthquakes in California and Nevada over the last 7 days.
Meanwhile, the section of the Ring of Fire that runs along the west coast of South America has also been getting hit pretty hard. A magnitude 5.4 quake struck northern Chile on Sunday, and that really shook a lot of people up.
Subsequently, the portion of the Ring of Fire that runs along the coast of Japan was hit by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake very late on Sunday…
The quake hit near the east coast of Honshu at 23.58 UTC on Sunday. The earthquake was reported to have a depth of 80km. It also hit 129km north east of Saitama and also 26km south east of Hitachi, according to emsc-csem. USGS tweeted: “Prelim M5.8 Earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan May-10 23:58 UTC”
And that unusual event in Japan was very quickly followed by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Indonesia.
Of course Indonesia sits right along the Ring of Fire as well.
There has been so much shaking in Indonesia recently, but most Americans never hear about it. Just a few days ago, Indonesia was hit by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that was so powerful that it was actually felt in Australia…
A powerful earthquake in Indonesia has been felt in the Northern Territory.
Residents of Darwin reported online they had felt the shake, which registered as a magnitude-6.9 quake late on Wednesday evening.
The tremor hit the Banda Sea, more than 600km north of Darwin, at a depth of 142km.
