The people from the internet have been wailing and hand wringing about how all the recent earthquakes were caused by Mother Earth being all mad and getting her revenge on.

Most of the time I don’t pay too much attention to the wingnuts, but there does seem to have been a preponderance of earthquakes hitting the media lately so I though I’d find out whether there really has been an increase in the last few years.

The short answer is no, there hasn’t, but for those of you who need to look busy, I'll give a slightly longer answer.

The United States Geological Survey estimates that there has been an average of 18 major earthquakes (magnitude 7.0-7.9) and one great earthquake (magnitude 8.0 or greater) per year since 1900, and, although this average has been relatively stable over the long term, there has been a significant drop in the last couple of years (likely to be a statistical blip more than anything else).

Below is a graph I made, which I fully expect appear soon on Steve Fielding and Andrew Bolt’s websites as conclusive proof that the world is, in fact, getting colder.

Also, in digging up this information, I found out a few fun facts about earthquakes that I thought I’d share.

There are on average 200 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or more in Australia every year. Earthquakes with magnitude 5.5, (like the one in Newcastle in 1989) occur about every two years. About every five years there is a potentially disastrous earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or more.

So, Sod's Law says this has got to go badly sooner or later, and if it happens before the next election then I think Peter Garrett should definitely resign.And Christine Nixon had better not be getting her fucking hair cut, or SHIT WILL HEAD FANWARDS.

Adelaide has the highest earthquake hazard of any major Australian city. It has experienced more medium-sized earthquakes in the past 50 years than any capital, because South Australia is being slowly squeezed sideways by about 0.1 mm/yr.

The earthquake that shook Adelaide last night was only about 3.8 and may have been caused by the gravitational pull of this person's loserness (oh and I wrote more stuff, so scroll down and keep reading):

About 90% of all earthquakes and 80% of the largest earthquakes occur on what is known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, pictured below.

I thought of a few bottom jokes to put in here (in reference to the ring of fire thing, come on people, keep up) but none of them were funny, so forget it, here’s the map:

While most earthquakes are caused by movement of the Earth's tectonic plates, human activity can also produce earthquakes. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China's Sichuan Province tremor resulted in 69,227 fatalities and was the 19th deadliest earthquake of all time. The Zipingpu Dam is believed to have fluctuated the pressure of the fault about ½ a kilometre away; this pressure probably increased the power of the earthquake and accelerated the rate of movement for the fault.

The greatest earthquake in Australia's history, in Newcastle earthquake in 1989, killed 13 people and caused about $4billion damage. Some American doomsday experts claim the earthquake was caused by a the millions of tons of rock removed in the local coal mines, but this is probably bullshit.

Declaration: I stole almost of the above from other sites on the internet.

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