Earthquakes-Sunspots In Review

Let me start by saying I am a fan of a proposed undiscovered planet, but if I were to vote for one it wouldn't be Sitchin's Nibiru. There are many doomsayers who say that, as the year 2012 comes to a close, we will see an apocalyptic end to any comfortable existence. A sizeable portion of them are dead set on the idea that Nibiru will play some diabolic part in it all.

I have looked in depth at the subject of a proposed Planet-X and the most likely scenario places it somewhere in the outer reaches of our solar system, say 130 astronomical units away or more, likely obscured by a backdrop of the Milky Way Galaxy, and at a high declination above or below the solar system's ecliptic plane. The reason I have concluded this is that, if it exists, such a scenario would explain why it has not yet been discovered. It seems incredulous to me that people would propose that this devoutly believed in planet would be at this moment practically in our back yard and the only reason we haven't found it yet is due to some grand conspiracy on the part of NASA or other scientific institutions.

My take on this whole situation is something like William Shatner telling Trekkies to "Get a Life". With that said, let us look at the past decade and then the last year in detail and by so doing see if we can't get a clue on what next year actually has in store for us.

Below is represented a display for the years 2002 through 2011 of the raw, observed (unsmoothed) sunspot numbers; taking the monthly numbers and averaging them in four month increments. Superimposed are the number of earthquakes (multiplied 5 times for display purposes) for the same period in the magnitude range of 6.7 to 7.8. There is an interesting aspect to the flow of earthquake activity during a 12 month period beginning in the last 4 months of 2008 and extending through the 8th month of 2009. Simply put, that is a perfect display of earthquakes unfolding at a constantly average rate.

We saw earthquakes occurring at a 25% more frequent rate on average for the last year than during that middle of the road example, but something interesting happened during the last third of the year.

Below is another graphic representing the past year of earthquake and sunspot activity. As you can see, the last four months started off with a bang, having 7 earthquake events in September, but then things took a nose dive to end the year at just 1 earthquake for each of the last two months. In other words, it started off at 3 times the normal average in the first month (or 2 times the norm for the first two months) but ended up at 1/2 that of normal during the final two months.

That is one reason why I got a "C" on my earthquake prediction report card. I hadn't been looking closely enough at the most recent earthquake activity. If I had, I might have just leaned back and taken a let's see look at the situation unfold instead of jumping right in there and making a public spectacle of myself. Normally there is about a 1 in 13 chance of a 6.7 magnitude or larger quake occurring somewhere in the world on any given day or once every other week. With the latest rate I could expect one such quake a month on average.

I originally gave 50-50 odds of a quake this size occurring off the SE coast of Japan's Honshu Island, but downgraded the probability to 15% or 1 in 6 a short time later. If I had known then what I know now, my estimate for the odds would be 1 in 12 or around 8%. Interestingly, New Year's Day started off with a quake of 6.8 magnitude off the SE coast of Japan's Honshu Island almost exactly four days after my original 4.33 day seismic window closed.

Since that last earthquake occurred at the beginning of a 31 day month and there is presently odds of a 6.7 magnitude or larger quake happening every 26.5 days, we may end up with another similar sized or blue moon style quake near the end of this month. There could even be a chance of two such quakes happening between now and then but, unless the odds are going to rebound soon, I don't see that happening (part of that belief is based on the current expected upswing in sunspot numbers). Speaking both astrologically and in regards to the current earthquake frequency trend, it is expected that such activity for the next couple of months will be no better than about average. Most likely one should expect 6.7-7.8 magnitude earthquakes to number 3 to 5 (but a better chance of less than more) during the next two months. A possible exception to this pattern would be for 8.4 or larger quakes (more on that in an upcoming hub). Things are also expected to pick up after that but not constantly throughout the year (it should roughly be an average year). Also, speaking mostly astrologically here, although it looks like the last few months of 2012 ought to be above average in activity, earthquakes shouldn't rise to the Nibiru drum banging occasion.