Tidal Triggering of Magnitude 7+ Earthquakes by Jupiter

TL;DR

This study investigates the potential influence of planetary positions, especially Jupiter, on large earthquakes using statistical tests, revealing significant activity patterns linked to specific orbital configurations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel statistical approach to analyze the correlation between planetary positions and large earthquake occurrences, focusing on Jupiter's influence.

Findings

Significant M7+ earthquake activity correlates with Jupiter's inferior conjunction and 'preceding neap' positions.

Earthquake activity shows pulse-like increases and decreases around specific Sun-Observer-Target angles.

No clear correlation found between lunar cycle and large earthquake activity.

Abstract

This work uses a chi-squared test of independence to determine if days that include earthquakes greater than or equal to magnitude 7 (M7+) from 1960 to 2024 are truly independent of the position of Earth in its orbit around the sun. To this end, this study breaks up Earth's orbit into days offset on either side of two reference Earth-Sun-Planet orientations, or zero-points: opposition and inferior conjunction. A computer program is used to sample U.S.G.S. earthquake and N.A.S.A. Horizons ephemeris data for the last 64 years with the purpose of conducting 28,782 chi-squared tests-of-independence for all intervals (5 to 45 days) spanning the entirety of Earth's synodic period relative to these zero points for Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and Mars. For Jupiter, 1,071 statistically significant intervals of M7+ activity are associated with two particular points: the inferior conjunction and what is here termed the "preceding neap" position. At both of these points, M7+ activity first increases (>125% average) and then sharply decreases in a pulse-like fashion, with those lulls in M7+ activity (<75% of average) lasting about a month. Both of these pulses of M7+ activity begin at Sun-Observer-Target (SOT) Angles near 45 degrees and 135 degrees, and this also observed for Venus and Saturn; Mars synodic period prevented any comparison of chi-squared intervals to SOT Angle. Although this study did not observe any obvious correlation of M7+ activity with the lunar cycle, the medians, means, and modes of the significant intervals returned by the chi-squared analysis for Jupiter range from 27 to 34 days, suggesting that intervals are more likely to be found significant by the chi-squared analysis if they average out the lunar cycle.