Earthquake in Haiti and now Chili... a bit too close together?

Same thing that always causes them – it’s just coincidence.

ahem… Chile

well clearly it’s the apocalypse

… and near the Ryukyu Islands and off the coast of Argentina.

You don’t know what causes earthquakes? There’s no cause for 2 different earthquakes, this is like asking why there were two babies born in the same hospital or something, it just happens, there’s no meaning.

@kevbo bwahhhhahah

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, I knew it was your sex ray!

Dude, you know darn well that Obama triggered the earthquake with an underground nuclear explosion so he could test socialist medicine on the Chileans. Right now some Acorn members are in Chile, signing up earthquake vicitims to vote in the next presidential election.~

Are we really searching for a cause here?

@kevbo sorry, I’ll be careful next time

@Dr_C lollolol

I remember learning about plate tectonics in school but I don’t remember much of it. I also took spanish and I only remember how to say “hola”. Where does it all go? Why did I even bother going to school?

I don’t think it is a far stretch to think that motion of one tectonic plate could trigger motion in another, or that the same underlying cause of the first might have caused the second. I wish I could remember school. Maybe I killed too many brain cells.

@DrC You are full of awesome and win.

Clearly this is a result of American ignorance about global warming. Wake up people!!!!

…actually, this is a very common occurrence that has happened hundreds of times in recorded history. Its nothing unusual or unheard of for two moderately strong earthquakes to occur in succession and relatively close. This question is also not really a matter of opinion.

@syzygy2600 stop ruining this with logic and fact – this question makes me laugh like crazy

Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

- Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, 1997

and

(C) The term `exotic weapons systems’ includes weapons designed to damage space or natural ecosystems (such as the ionosphere and upper atmosphere) or climate, weather, and tectonic systems with the purpose of inducing damage or destruction upon a target population or region on earth or in space.

- from the Space Preservation Act of 2001 (which died in committee) located here—> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.2977.IH:

@kevbo this is true. If Under Siege 2: Dark Territory taught me anything it’s that you can cause an earthquake from space, bring down planes with it, and totally take out an underground nuclear reactor.

Also that Katherine Heigl is hawt.

Aaaaaand that “Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups”

Who’s making an assumption? I’m just presenting a possibility.

@kevbo I was quoting the movie dude… I agreed with you!

Oh, my bad. Didn’t see the movie. ;-)

There was also an earthquake in Japan, as well as the one in Argentina, before the one in Chile. It’s called plate tectonics. It happens. The Pacific Ocean is shrinking and the Atlantic Ocean is growing by 1 inch per year, roughly.

The earthquake in Chile actually altered the Earth’s axis and made the days shorter by 1.26 milliseconds.

@tragiclikebowie now, that right there is a liberal conspiracy because they never want to work a full day

they are connected but not a cause of one another
we even had a small 3.6 earthquake in il and there was a 5.6 in japan

it all just proves that the plates are vary active, so expect more this year (they’re just gearing up for 2012)

Pssssssst. This is insider information and you didn’t hear it from me. The Force is angry with our planet. It has sent alien energy to upset the balance, and these earthquakes are merely side affects…child’s play. Next, the Force will alter the gravity level we are used to and we will be seeing the moon….without help from NASA. Beware. This is something to tell your grandkids, if the planet survives that long. It really depends on how soon the wrath of the Force will subside.

This has happened before. Relax – it’s not 2012 yet.

In an atmosphere of sarcasm like this, how can a factual answer find a place?

Yes, it’s scary. And don’t forget, Argentina, just miles away, got hit by an earthquake too a few days ago! Yikes!

@Dr_Lawrence Good point…

According to this, the earthquakes are uncommon but not unexpected. It is one of those “every few decades” things. I wouldn’t freak just yet…it looks like these occurrences will settle down.

Clustering does not rule out randomness. Indeed, show me something evenly spread out, and I’ll show you something that isn’t random.

A math prof I knew told a story about a colleague who assigned as a homework problem that each student should flip a coin a large number of times and record the results. As each student handed their sheet in the next day he would glance at their report and within seconds declare it “fake” or “real”. Everyone who had dodged the drudgery of doing the coin flips by jotting down what they felt was a “random” sequence of heads and tails was found out. This got the class a bit curious. He revealed that he had chosen the number of flips such that the chance that any truly random sequence of flips did not contain a streak of five or more heads/tails in a row was exceedingly small. When he looked over each paper, he was scanning for the longest streak.

Matt. 24:3–8 – Jesus’ disciples asked Him what would be the signs of His returning and the end of the world. Part of His reply was this, “there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

In laymen terms, as these things begin to happen more frequently, know that His return is very near and this world as we know it is coming to an end. There have been more earthquakes in the last 100 years than in all of history. I believe this is prophecy being fulfilled right before our very eyes.

ok… i think this is a good time to stop following the thread. Prepare for a flame war.

Well, I suppose they’re close together in the sense that they happened on the same planet.

@Dr_C nah, no one takes that seriously

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I know…. just being cautious :P