Wondering about the rock we're standing on...

[HereSince1628]

Half-way through the year and it appears to have been our good fortune not to have had a 6.0 to 6.9 earthquake in the US.

I am quite sure this isn't unusual considering the apparent randomness of these events that do have small frequencies of occurrence anyway. But it has been a quiet year so far.

This is the last decade's annual occurrence of this size quake in the US according to USGS.gov

2000 6
2001 5
2002 4
2003 7
2004 2
2005 4
2006 7
2007 9
2008 9
2009 4
2010 8
2011 0 as of July 10

[MADem]

1. Wait'll all the activity from that fracking settles out!

I worry that fracking will cause earthquakes in places where we've rarely seen them.

I suppose Japan's mess was enough this year for everyone.

[Hawkowl]

2. Could this be bad news?

Does this mean the pressure along the fault lines are building and instead of a few smaller quakes we are just going to have one big one?