It is no wonder why many people across the globe are coming up with their own theories on why we are entering a stage of heightened seismic activity when somewhere around the world is being hit by a large magnitude quake, if not everyday, a few days apart. Just today a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Papua New Guinea, luckily not prompting any Pacific wide tsunami warning. Just last week we saw Italy's most devastating earthquake since 1980, a magnitude 6.2 which struck central of the country claiming over 200 lives and burying almost all of the town of Amatrice, located next to the epicenter of the earthquake. On that very same day hours later, another large quake struck Burma, Myanmar measuring 6.8 in magnitude claiming one life and causing damage to infrastructure near the quakes epicenter.
Credit: AFP
According to USGS's statistics on their website which shows earthquake statistics between the years of 2000 to 2012, on average there are fifty earthquakes per day of magnitudes between 1 to 9 on the Richter scale. That equals 20,000 earthquakes per year. As you can see on the chart below taken from USGS's statistics 2003 and 2004 were very seismic years with 11,000 extra earthquakes as an approximation above the average. This year however, looking at Global Incident Maps, there are around one hundred earthquakes a day give or take since February to March when earthquakes started to dramatically increase in magnitude and amount. So as a calculation and an approximation due to the unpredictability of earthquakes we can calculate on the basis of having 100 earthquakes per day which is what we have been seeing nearly everyday since the beginning of this year. We are expected to see by the end of this year: 100 x 365 which equals 36,500 earthquakes if seismic activity still picks up, which would then result as a record breaker for recorded earthquakes this century and 2016 will go down as one of the most seismic and most active years for both earthquakes and volcanoes.
Looking at today's earthquakes, in accordance to Global Incident Maps, we have had 100 earthquakes worldwide in just 19 hours, which include aftershocks from the 6.2 quake in Italy last week and a 5.9 magnitude quake that prompted fears in Kyushu Japan due to Fukushima, the plant where radiation has been pouring into the Pacific Ocean since the deadly quake back in 2011 and is still damaged from that earthquake. That means that today we have had over 100 earthquakes around the world showing that earthquakes are continuing to increase.
Link: http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/
So why has this been the most seismic years? Well many have their own theories from the "earthquakes in diverse places" theory to the vast increase in solar flares which have also been happening throughout the course of this year with many CME's being ejected that are earth facing. Fracking is also another theory that people have for those who have been feeling earthquakes in area's that are not very prone to them and have occurred there frequently, for example, Central America which has seen many 3.0 magnitude quakes this year and later it was discovered that it was because of fracking and the injecting of oil into rocks underground causing significant movement. Some have even speculated at a possible pole shift or the arrival of a new planet into our solar system after scientists have discovered an Earth-like planet sitting outside of our solar system and another planet called "Planet Nine" which scientists and astronomers have teamed up recently to find to prove the theory of an undiscovered planet helping the orbit of our very own discovered planets in our solar system. Scientists also discovered a few months ago that there are massive blobs of lava under the ground rising up from the core through the mantle and up to the crust which scientists say take many years to happen as they move so slowly and some say that it is due to this movement underground which is resulting in these earthquakes to occur [http://www.livescience.com/55285-mysterious-blobs-in-earths-mantle.html].
Credit: http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2016/04/18/impulsive-solar-flare-measuring-m6-7-erupted-from-region-2529/
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There are many theories out there about why we are seeing so many earthquakes this year, but looking at statistics earthquakes are continuing to increase and gain in magnitude and still nobody has a solid answer to why, but one thing we know for sure is that this year will go down as the most seismic year of the century.
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