Another shimmy in San Andreas

California, not to be out done by American Samoa (is there a Polish Samoa?) and Indonesia, fired up its plate tectonics but could only muster a measly five-point-three on Herr Richter's scale. Which got me to thinking, have the quakes been picking up steam here of late or has it "just been my imagination...runnin' away with me?"

So off to the US Geological Survey I toddle, cyberly speaking of course. Here's what I find. In the early part of this decade, the earth creaked and groaned about 22,000 times per year. Here in the latter part of the decade, it's regularly topping 30,000 quakes (here).

"Yeah, so?" you retort. Well, I went to the little link beneath the table, the one that references quake totals back in the 1990's. Here's what I find. Quake totals worldwide for the early '90's barely broke 16,000 (here). The earth today shakes its plates at a rate almost double what it did less than 20 years ago.

I wish I could have gone back further but I couldn't find the links. I'm sure they're out there somewhere. Still, a near doubling of earthquakes in less than two decades?

Hmmm...