2012?!?!?!

The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile, combined with the recent Haitian and Japanese earthquakes, have had a lot of people asking, “why all of the earthquakes?” Well for you 2012 believers, sorry to disappoint, but scientists have come to the conclusion that our Earth has become more active in the past 15 years not as a prelude to an apocalypse, but rather because Mother Nature is fluctuating as usual. Scientists have also recognized that with improved communication, we are simply being informed about natural disasters more often and in more detail than we were in the past, leading to the illusion that these events are actually happening more often. J. Ramon Arrowsmith, a geologist at Arizona State University, states that, "the increased media coverage of earthquakes is not any indication of a global change in earthquake rate of significance, we're just hearing more about the events that do occur.” Arrowsmith goes on to explain that we still do not know the reason for Earth’s increased activity in the past 15 years, but he, along with other scientists, have hypothesized that it is simply the natural variation of the stress field in the earth's lithosphere. I found this article to be very interesting because it addresses two large concepts that we’ve discussed in class: earthquakes and the structure of the earth. It’s also interesting to see how big of a role improved communication has played in the world’s perception of natural disasters!

http://www.livescience.com/environment/chile-earthquake-tsunami-100227.html