[Rockhounds] Many earthquakes in North America are 200-year-old aftershocks

[DON HALTERMAN]

I will share what my geophysics professor taught us: plate tectonics is constant.  There is a tendency to focus on "big ones" because of the damage and disruption they cause.  The minor quakes that tend to follow are commonly called "aftershocks" because they are smaller, often thought of as "adjustments" to the large fault event that just happened.  But they can also be considered the foreshocks of the next quake that may occur years, decades, or even centuries later.  Since the evolution of the earth is a continuous process, he said, there are no foreshocks or aftershocks in the scientific sense.  They're just all earthquakes of different magnitudes.  Make of that what you all will.  :) 

Best,
Don



> On 11/16/2023 5:17 AM MST Jeffrey Joy <jeffreyjoy at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  
> https://interestingengineering.com/science/aftershocks-200-year-earthquakes-felt-today
> 
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