Why are there so many earthquakes around the world lately twa1302245705

Why are there so many earthquakes around the world lately?

Do they have anything to do with the accelerated human activities during the last one hundred years?

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Industry/Domain: Natural environment
Category: Earthquake
Created: 16:00, 31 December 1969

Answers (3)

I think there are the same amount of natural disasters (including earthquakes) now as there were in history. The only difference is that now we have ways of instantly reporting and viewing them (like the internet, Twitter, cell phones, etc.), so instant media coverage makes them seem more frequent. 100 years ago, before all this technology existed, it wasn't likely that an average-sized earthquake would be reported overseas -- and it certainly wasn't possible to witness these catastrophes in real time. The only ones people might have heard about were those that were particularly destructive, like the Ansei Edo Great Earthquake (or Great Ansei Earthquake) in Japan in 1855, which destroyed a significant portion of what's now modern Tokyo. You also have to consider that, until recently, there really wasn't equipment sensitive enough to measure the damage caused by natural disasters, nor any standards for referring to them, which is why they might not always appear in history books.

03:40, 8 April 2011

nelson qiao

Earthquakes are caused when two of Earth's tectonic plates rub together, causing vibrations that turn into earthquakes. One of the reasons why more earthquakes are happening lately is because the tectonic plates are "rubbing" more often and frequently because they've either run out of places to move to (tectonic plates slowly drift), or they're just prone to rubbing against each other. In my opinion, this is the reason why there are more earthquakes.

02:14, 8 April 2011