Earthquake data exhibit clear patterns that correlate with planetary alignments.

The USGS National Earthquake Information Center lists large earthquakes at http://neic.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/epic/ep...LON=0.0&CRAD=0.

From this list I extracted dates of 1826 large earthquakes between 1901 and 1994.
Examination against planetary records produced the following findings:

Earthquakes occurred twice as often in the half of the year when Mars was on the other side of the Sun, 43% more often when Jupiter was behind the Sun and 19% more often when Saturn was on the other side. Quakes were 25% more frequent than average in the four weeks each year when Uranus was within 24 degrees of the sun, and 46% more frequent than average in the three weeks each year when Pluto was within 18 degrees of the sun.

These findings do not tell exactly when and where earthquakes will happen, but they do suggest planetary gravity can be like ‘the straw that breaks the camel’s back’ in affecting earthquake timing. The astronomical significance of these findings is to illustrate that tiny planetary gravitational effects can produce regular measurable rhythmic patterns on earth.

These findings support the claims of measurable terrestrial patterns presented in my recent BAUT on planets and rain Planets and Rain

I can check the findings in the astrology research program, Jigsaw, but before I do that it would be handy to know what magnitude of quakes you used.

We look forward to your actual data rather than the conclusions you jumped to, but I suspect that what all the data will actually show is that by cherry-picking the right planets as "influences" you can find that the random events of (a chosen subset?) of large earthquakes can be made to be more, or less, frequent during certain portions of the planet's or planets' orbits.

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Some interesting findings there, Robert.

I would be concerned about the data since early 20th century data might be more selective and perhaps more dependent on earthquakes occurring near population centres.


Have you compared the frequency of earthquakes with the normal distribution one would expect from the planetary cycles you mention? There may be some astronomical artifacts here that skew the data from what one might expect.

I've got about 4,000 earthquakes here and I've just noticed that before 1900 the magnitudes were only approximate. This dataset also has most of them for the period 1967 to 2003.

I thought that the scientists had made it clear that gravity associated with distant planets could theoretically only have miniscule impact.

When you say "Mars was on the other side of the Sun" I assume you mean MAR opposite SUN by zodiacal longitude. If so, then you must have made a mistake somewhere because that configuration (with any orb) is reasonably rare and couldn't show up more often than a theoretical average (which shouldn't be used anyway because of the normal uneven distribution).

That is interesting that you mentioned tiny, distant Pluto, but not the mother of all tide-raisers after the Sun and Moon, namely Venus at inferior conjunction.

Suppose for the sake of argument that the repetitive tidal stretching and squeezing of a fault that is already near the breaking point indeed is the "straw that broke the camel's back". I would look for a correlation with the highest tides during the general period, which would be spring tides with the Moon near perigee. If the perigee point is crossways to the Sun at any given time, the spring tides will be significantly lower. Even if all the planets were perfectly lined up with the Sun, creating their equivalent of a spring tide, they would not be able to offset that reduction.

Have you taken the Moon's perigee position into account in your analysis?

None of this takes into consideration that no two faults are going to be alike. I would be flabbergasted if the San Andreas and Anatolian Faults, to name a couple of big ones, had the same time constant in their response, if any, to repetitive tidal stress.

In my opinion you are seeing nothing but statistical flukes. That is assuming you are doing the statistical analysis correctly, which I have no way of judging one way or the other.

...so how come there are earthquakes when the planets AREN'T aligned??????

Methinks your logic has some gaps you could drive a starship through....

I've just had a look at part of my own dataset again - using only the data from 1st Jan 1968 to 1st Jan 1978 and noticed an extraordinary number of quakes with the Sun in the (western/tropical) astrological sign of Leo. The quakes in that sign between magnitudes 5.0 and 6.0 give a p-score of 0.0003.

No allowance was made for the slight difference in size of the zodiac signs - which vary by a few percent. It wasn't necessary for a quick search like this because the ratio was 171% of the mean score.

Interesting. Mr. Tulip, how would your theory change if I told you that the person standing next to you exhibited a greater gravitational impact upon you than the planet Jupiter when it is on the opposite side of the sun, let alone our own Moon?

Also, if I told you that earthquakes are more likely to happen on days that I've eaten a Strawberry Pop-tart vs. a Blueberry Pop-tart, would that not then, using your logic, naturally suggest that Strawberry Pop-tarts play some undefined, "straw breaking the camel's back" role in Earthquake activity?

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

In doing more work on the data, the most exciting thing is that the earthquake pattern correlated with the Mars-Sun aspect cycle in a highly distinctive way. All aspects on which Mars was closer to conjunction with the Sun (ie when Mars was on the other side of the solar system from us) had above average numbers of earthquakes, without exception. Conversely, all aspects closer to Mars opposite sun had below average numbers of quakes. Of the 1826 quakes listed in the reference period 1901-1994, 490 were during the Mars opposite Sun half year and 1337 were in the Mars conjunct Sun half year, as shown on the attached diagram. On the null hypothesis of no planetary effect, these groups would be equal, but the conjunct half has 2.7 times as many quakes as the opposition half. The data evidences a large clear link between tectonic cycles and Mars-Sun aspects.

The quakes are as listed on the link in the opening post. They all appear to be above 4 magnitude. I will email you the list of 1826 dates I used, which are all the useable dates since 1901, excluding those which only give a year or month.

I have sought to be comprehensive and methodical in this study, by looking at the data for all planetary aspect pairings. The finding as explained above shows that 01101001’s skepticism is easily answered. I would welcome advice from BAUT regarding provision of data, as the full excel spreadsheet I have prepared is rather large, and my previous experience is that there is little interest in data even when offered.

More quakes are recorded in the latter part of the century. However this data weakness does not influence the annual Mars effect. One would normally expect that earthquake dates are random, so artifacts can be ruled out.

Very happy to share data. I started in 1901 because the excel date function does not work before then.
This is precisely why I am raising this issue on ‘Against the Mainstream’. The earth and mars are ‘sister planets’. It seems from this data that they have a connection evidenced in earthquake frequency. I argue a miniscule physical effect over two billion iterations (the number of earth-mars conjunctions since the dawn of the solar system) can establish a harmonic rhythm which is much more powerful than a one-off arrhythmic effect.
Apologies if this was not clear – by Mars on the other side of the sun I mean the 50% of the time when Mars is closer to conjunct Sun than opposition. When Mars is opposite Sun in the zodiac it is on the same side of the solar system as earth.

My findings are not theory determined but are purely empirical. I too would have thought Venus would have a bigger effect than Pluto, but I did not see it in the data. As in my previous planets and rain study, my method was to list all earthquake dates then (using Vlookup on excel) link this list to all planetary positions for those dates, and for each planetary pair, divide the 360 degrees of the circle into sixty segments and count the number of earthquakes in each segment. e.g. for the Mars-Sun aspect cycle, 30 segments are closer to conjunction and thirty are closer to opposition. The result as quoted above is far too improbable to be a statistical fluke.

I am not suggesting planetary influences are a principal cause of earthquakes, only that they have an effect which is easily statistically detectable.

Hi serenitude, I think I have answered your questions already. I am not primarily expressing opinions about when earthquakes should occur, just studying the data on when they actually occur. Pop-tarts have not shared synchronous orbits with the earth for five billion years, so are less likely than Mars to produce observable and easily replicable results of the sort I am presenting.

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Ok, I'm with you now. That's a normal distribution you are seeing. I've just generated 10,000 random dates, times & places for the 20th century and found that MAR con SUN (+/- 90 degrees) in zodiacal longitude occurred 73.3% of the time and MAR opp SUN occurred 26.7% which has a ratio of 2.7453 versus your 2.7285.

Ray

Thanks Ray - too good to be true. You are right. In looking at all the planet alignments against earthquake lists this was the one that had the most obvious trend. I should have looked into it more closely. Given that Mars goes retrograde while opposite Sun I had assumed that the periods were the same. Ah, well. Back to square one. Strike out the Mars effect. The same problem applied to the claims about Jupiter and Saturn, but hopefully not to all the findings. I will look to see what I can salvage.

I must assume that the mods consider this "version" of Mr. Tulips astrology to be different enough from his previous efforts to deserve a thread.

To me it is perfectly clear that this is just another "flavor" of Mr. Tulip's junk science statistics.

So this thread is about planetary motion influencing Earthquakes....
What was the last one about...planetary motion influencing rain patterns?

I wonder what the next one will be about...

...and I wonder how many more "bites at the apple" Mr. Tulip will be getting??

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

What we need for things like this is a friendly game where we put forward our observations and invite others to try and shoot them down a.s.a.p.

Incidentally, that uneven Sun distribution I mentioned earlier is something I'll be following up. I've developed a graphing system - a 100-step "movie graph" which shows when trends in a graph come and go or when they first became prominent in a dataset.

Email that data when you're ready, and as soon as I get my file (manually) tagged for all the earthquake magnitudes I'll send a csv file. It should take about another day.

Ray

I'm new here and have no idea where the policy boundaries lie, or what Mr. Tulip might come up with next, but it would seem anomalous to exclude discussion about possible correlations between celestial phenomena and physical things, apart from those that have already been found by science.

Ray

Hello Robert Tulip,

I find interest in all sorts of effects. Is there a significant increase given any planetary alignment? That meaning either side not just behind the sun.

From what you have posted your statistics indicate yes.

More interesting is there any marked increase in magnitude of quake given the time intervals between alignments?

Thirdly is there any co-relation to magnitude based on alignment types?

There is no harm in looking for better ways to understand our environment.

Suggestions for other possible correlations:

1. Population boom-bust cycles of lemmings.

2. Migration of monarch butterflies.

3. Emergence of 17-year locusts.

4. Toilet flushes at halftime on Super Bowl Sunday.

The mass redistributions caused by these events would be miniscule compared with the water moved around annually by the monsoon cycle, much as Pluto's tidal effect is miniscule compared with that of Venus, which in turn is miniscule compared with the variation in the magnitude of the Moon's component.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Bad luck there, but not too surprising. If there had been a correlation between simple planetary configurations, I suspect it would have been known already. OTOH, I'm not sure the extent to which correlations between planetary positions and earthquakes have actually been investigated by conventional science. It is more likely that the entire hypothesis is dismissed on a priori grounds of an negligible gravitational effect. Without a plausible mechanism, the correlation question becomes moot. Perhaps the only research of any description has been conducted by those sympathetic to astrology and they are not known for their statistical abilities.

I'm intrigued by your idea of repeated planetary cycles creating a kind of cumulative gravitational effect so that tiny forces can become magnified over time. Is there any analog for this approach elsewhere in the physical world?

OK...simply describe the mechanism involved that would make this correlation possible and I'll be more than happy to take Mr. Tulip's "ideas" seriously.

The problem is that Mr. Tulip reaches conclusions without the benefit of any evidence that would lead to those conclusions. He attempts to pigeonhole/cheery pick observations which would "seem" to agree with his conclusion.

That's not science...heck, that's doing science backwards.

But who knows....even a blind squirrel will occasionally find a nut, but from what I've seen of Mr. Tulips "work", I certainly wouldn't "bet the farm" on his ideas.


edit to add....my basic "gripe" is that Mr. Tulip is allowed to present (IMO) the same argument for astrology again, and again, and again. That is specifically against the rules of this board.

...but as I said in my other post, if the mods don't see it that way, then they don't see it that way...

But that's not going to stop me from speaking out about it...call it a character flaw.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I don't wish to get involved in any discussion about the rules on my first day in a new group, but if what you said it factual, then I'd suggest you make a formal request to have them enforced.

Ray

I believe that idea is pure bunk. The only way I can think of for a small component to build up to a disproportionately large result over time, while the Moon's result stays about the same, would be for the small one to hit some sort of a resonance with the body of our planet. The trouble with that is that it should level off asymptotically at a low level because of damping in a rather short time.

For a rough analogy, suppose I sit in a rocking chair and bob my head gently at the resonant frequency. The oscillations will increase in amplitude for a short time and then level off if I keep the impetus at a constant value. On the other hand I can tip the chair over by making a sufficiently violent motion, even if it is nowhere near the resonant frequency.

Suppose for the sake of argument that Pluto, or any planet for that matter, does cause a resonant oscillation that somehow does not get damped and continues to grow. If it did get large enough to offset the normal tendency for tides to be highest with the Moon near perigee at spring tide, those who keep track of the tides should have seen it right away.

If Robert Tulip cannot come up with a better theory than that, I have no choice but to dismiss the apparent planetary effects as statistical flukes, which can and do happen. For example, variable star observers have looked for possible periodic components in the irregularities of the pulsations of Mira and similar stars. Sometimes they would see something that looked roughly periodic over a couple of decades, but when they tried to extrapolate the resulting empirical formula it fell apart. I am going to search for the Sky and Telescope article where I read about it. It was about 30 years ago so this may take a while.

Yeah...sorry to "put you in the middle"...my apologies.

It's a matter of interpretation, and I can see where the mods are "coming from" re. Mr. Tulip. As long as he "tweaks" his "theory" just a bit, then he isn't presenting exactly the same argument. The difference is (IMO) the mods are giving him every "benefit of the doubt", and personally, I'm just not that "generous".

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Aye.

To me, this just looks like a variation on the theme of endless promotion.

I urge moderators to ponder how this new mutation of the lust-to-promote can be managed without harm to BAUT. I look forward to yet another clever defensive adaptation to this new offensive behavior.

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Oh ye of little, little faith. Did you not see the nibbler I put in?

Mr. Tulip. I am closing this thread, with a warning. The subject matter has changed slightly. but this is just another of your nonsensical, psuedo-science astrology. I am using those words deliberately, lest anyone think we here at BAUT might actually acknowledge it as legitimate science, even ATM, in any sense of the word.

I phrased a very, very simple question, that even someone with the most basic and fundamental understanding of science should have been able to give a satisfactory reply to wrt the science of their ATM concept. Your answer was unsatisfactory.

I would advise you to get thee to a library, read about science, and only post another ATM concept when it is A) not another minor, self-promoting variation of the baseless "planetary alignment" idea, and when you are ready to defend said idea from science, using science.

Consider this an official warning. Should you fail to satisfy these criteria upon opening your next thread, you will be suspended.

Thread locked.

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher