'Supermoon' and the Japanese earthquake

[australopithecus]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1365225/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Did-supermoon-cause-todays-natural-disaster.html

The powerful tsunami that today slammed into Japan's eastern coast comes just two days after warnings that the movement of the moon could trigger unpredictable events on Earth.

Astrologers predicted that on March 19 - a week tomorrow - the so-called 'supermoon' will be closer to Earth than at any time since 1992, just 221,567 miles away, and that its gravitational pull will bring chaos to Earth.

Others on the Internet have predicted it will cause further catastrophes such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

I've highlighted the glaring error. The Daily Mail: Where journalism goes to die. Don't read the reader comments if you value your sanity.

:facepalm:

 

[Independent Vision]

Most online newspaper is where journalism goes to die, and a lot of paper newspapers as well. You have to sift through a lot of crap to find written news sources these days where the editor is not pulling a sleeping beauty.

My blog holds a higher standard than The Daily Mail.

 

[australopithecus]

Barely readable doodles on public toilet doors hold a higher standard than The Daily Mail

 

[Independent Vision]

Very, very true. Which makes it even more funny when people post The Daily Mail article in debates and claim it as a valid source. :lol:

And by funny I mean horrifying. :?

 

[Prolescum]

I was once sent this list of items produced by the Daily Mail. It is a list of everything the newspaper has said will give you cancer.

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[Darkchilde]

It is widely known that the Daily Mail's true name is The Daily Fail.

 

[Prolescum]

It is also widely known which side they championed in the second world war...

 

[Laurens]

So is the supermoon different to the regular moon? :lol:

 

[Anachronous Rex]

So is the supermoon different to the regular moon? :lol:

It has a cape.

 

[Prolescum]

So is the supermoon different to the regular moon? :lol:

It has a cape.

There's water on the supermoon? I knew we came from space!

 

[Duvelthehobbit666]

Here comes the supermoon
Ta ta da da!!!!!

 

[judomuerte]

I pulled a list of all earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or greater for January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2010. I then put a hash where each monthly apogee occurred to see if there was correlation. There was not. If you would like to see the graph I made, or would like to see the raw data, let me know. From what I saw, neither apogee or perigee of the moon had any correlation with earthquakes on Earth. I do believe that 10 years is a small data set, but it was enough for me to debunk a friend who claimed the "supermoon" caused earthquakes.

What I am working on now is a more detailed chart, depicting all the known data, and events of all magnitudes, along with hash marks for apogee and perigee.

 

[Case]

So... how many obstetricians did we need to counteract its gravitational pull?

 

[Laurens]

 

[RigelKentaurusA]

I pulled a list of all earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or greater for January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2010. I then put a hash where each monthly apogee occurred to see if there was correlation. There was not. If you would like to see the graph I made, or would like to see the raw data, let me know. From what I saw, neither apogee or perigee of the moon had any correlation with earthquakes on Earth. I do believe that 10 years is a small data set, but it was enough for me to debunk a friend who claimed the "supermoon" caused earthquakes.

What I am working on now is a more detailed chart, depicting all the known data, and events of all magnitudes, along with hash marks for apogee and perigee.

I'm not at all surprised. How did you go about doing this? Did you fold the 10-year baseline to the period of the Moon's orbit? This would even out the random month-to-month variations in the earthquake data to make some 28-day periodicity appear if one existed.

 

[judomuerte]

I pulled a list of all earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or greater for January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2010. I then put a hash where each monthly apogee occurred to see if there was correlation. There was not. If you would like to see the graph I made, or would like to see the raw data, let me know. From what I saw, neither apogee or perigee of the moon had any correlation with earthquakes on Earth. I do believe that 10 years is a small data set, but it was enough for me to debunk a friend who claimed the "supermoon" caused earthquakes.

What I am working on now is a more detailed chart, depicting all the known data, and events of all magnitudes, along with hash marks for apogee and perigee.

I'm not at all surprised. How did you go about doing this? Did you fold the 10-year baseline to the period of the Moon's orbit? This would even out the random month-to-month variations in the earthquake data to make some 28-day periodicity appear if one existed.

Yes, very simply, I plotted a line graph of with the apogee noted with a blue hash. I only allowed for mag 5.0 or greater to avoid a plethora of aftershocks. In the chart, only the number of events per day are noted, and are not divided into magnitudes. Also the chart doesn't show location of the earthquakes, which if plotted could show a higher correlation on the side of the planet facing the moon. There are lots of problems I'll admit, but it is interesting to note the lack of a pattern, which is what I predicted.