Earthquakes … are they increasing?

Piers Corbyn has attributed current earthquake activity to lunar and solar factors – and presumably the much smaller influences on earth by the planets. In effect, it is a peculiarity of 2011 – but that peculiarity pops up at www.physorg.com/print221480079.html where it asks, 'Are we living in an age of giant earthquakes?' – following a succession of large tremors. An earthquake, it suggests, represents the abrupt release of seismic strain that has built up over years as plates of the earth's crust slowly grind and rub up against each other. The key word in this theory is gradual – a slow never ending geological process. A geologist at the US Geological Survey has studied earthquakes and says that although large earthquakes are followed and preceded by after shocks and lesser shocks, such clusters may not actually mean anything of importance. Overall, the pattern is random. What is it that Piers Corbyn knows they do not – see www.weatheraction.com