Through decades of research, scientists have learned that large, powerful earthquakes commonly occur in groups, not in random patterns. But exactly why has so far remained a mystery. Now, new research published July 13 in Scientific Reviews, asserts the first strong — though still disputed — evidence that powerful eruptions on the sun can trigger mass earthquake events on Earth.
“Large earthquakes all around the world are not evenly distributed … there is some correlation among them,” says Giuseppe De Natale, research director at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome and co-author of the new study. “We have tested the hypothesis that solar activity can influence the worldwide [occurrence of earthquakes].”
