recent earth quakes - check out guatemala and california.

looks like its trying to tilt !!

and its also trying to crack guatemala in half and
from HERE to HERE

lets hope that we can be spared anything like this !!

north american region

Cool sites Paul,

I'd be more worried about the recent quakes in Utah and Yellowstone (Jan.9&10)-from your link.

I still worry most about Turkey (and region); and I wonder if warmer oceans might have warmed the crust enough to increase earthquakes.

Good grief!
Questioning whether global warming is causing earthquakes now?

At this rate, global warming will be blamed for the next solar storm that knocks out communication satellites.

Canuck

alomst all earthquakes are caused by the earth heating up
and cooling down.

think of a plate as you would any other mass , you heat it up
and it expands , you cool it down and it shrinks.

some earthquakes are caused by the shear weight of the landmass.

take asia for instance this land mass is cooling down greatly this winter and as a result there will be shrinking of the land mass.

next summer asia will be warming up again , thus expansion.

global warming , if you dont already know is not just warming , it is extreme weather patterns that are the result of extreme temperature fluctuations.

we havent even begun to see what global warming can and will do.

the glaciers are melting because the colder periods are shorter
and the warmer periods are longer.

what samwik said is true.


the oceans play an important role in keeping the earth cool
and any ocean that is now warmer , would be less able to supply its coolness to the earths crust below it , nor to the magma below the crust.

this is due to heat transfer.

when the earth heats up , the magma expands. more volume
when the earth cools down , the magma shrinks. less volume.

global warming causes more water to be lifted from the oceans as water vapor and placed on land as snow and rain , this movement also increases the weight of the landmasses and decreases the weight of the oceans.

which by the way is supported by the earths magma.

yes , global warming causes an increase in earthquakes.

"and any ocean that is now warmer , would be less able to supply its coolness to the earths crust below it , nor to the magma below the crust."

Paul, if this sentence is indicative of your understanding of thermodynamics and heat transfer (supply it's coolness?), perhaps you should go back to trying to figure out how many fish need to be taken out of the ocean to offset water level rise due to glacier melt.


I assure you, increasing the global average air temperature will not cause an increase in earthquakes.

Happy Friday!
Sorry for this hasty, disjointed post (see 4 tangential points in middle).


...except as air temp. affects oceanic temperature?


Thanks Canuk, you give me more credit than....
I'm not trying to whip up a frenzy of fear about earthquakes caused by GW; but just think it's interesting technically....

I do think that any equation that could account for earthquakes must have terms describing the buoyancy and plasticity (temp?) of the crust. I was thinking mainly of oceanic heat transfer to the crust (or slowing transfer from the crust to a warming ocean).

1. Yep, Thermodynamics sucks heat, conventionally, and doesn't 'supply... coolness;' but conceptually it's all the same and easy to translate.
2. I was amazed to learn that 1 degree C can cause a 10 meter change in elevation due to buoyancy changes in the deep crust.
3. Increasing rebound of Greenland could cause an increase in sea level, much as changes in the mid-ocean ridges can affect sea level.
4. I would even think that ocean currents might contribute a small amount to continental "drift;" and that changing currents could trigger an already impending earthquake.

But overall, I'd guess that the changes in elevation (rising) of landforms, due to mass loss as glaciers melt, has a much larger contribution to tectonic activity.

Google earth KLM's worldwide earthquakes magnatude and depth.

No doubt this is a silly question -- but is there in fact any evidence that earthquakes are more likely in Summer? Is there Earthquake weather like there is Bushfire weather? Certainly the big one in Aceh that caused the tsunami recently was in the S.Hemisphere summer!

I'd think the local temperature wouldn't transfer to the crust very quickly; but that the overall global average would slowly affect the crust. Certainly melting tundra/permafrost changes the insulation of the crust locally.

I've long wondered if rain might affect quakes by adding weight and lubrication (but that isn't very likely; too close to surface)(but maybe...).
Think of lubrication and weight changes under glaciers!

Even the moon causes the crust to raise several 10's of centimeters (several decimeters?).

LMAO!!!
sorry but you guys are too funny

http://www.ess.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/INFO_GENERAL/NQT/what_causes.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/10136/earthquk/earttq.htm

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Seismicity/what_causes_earthquakes.html

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Seismicity/what_causes_earthquakes.html

The links contain a lot of information regarding earthquakes, and they do explain the shaking, moving etc. that occurs, however the explanation of exactly why this happens is missing. The suggestion in this topic was that weather conditions, or some other environmental change, may be responsible for triggering the event itself. Folk history, for example, suggests that animals and birds were thought to sense earthquakes long before the shaking etc, started. This theory of animal behavioural change was at one stage being taken seriously in China, where the phenomenon was being researched. It would be a huge advantage to be able to assess conditions and predict the possibility of an earthquake.

there has been alot of earthquake activity recently on the west coast...

the article

link to the live / clickable version of the below image

Oregon earthquake SWARM as they call it seismic activity U.S. and Central America