The seismic data was acquired was from the National Earthquake Information Center

Key assumptions made in the estimates of the incremental energy released by earthquakes are:

That is, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake release 32 times more energy than a 6.2 earthquake.

2. We arbitrarily assigned 1 billion Energy Units (EU) released by an "average" earthquake of a magnitude ranging from 8.0 to 9.9 in the Scale.

Therefore, the energy released by all earthquakes of lower magnitudes were scaled down from such arbitrary number utilizing the 32 factor.

Note: Since we were comparing changes in the levels of energy released and not the absolute level of the energy released, the arbitrarily assigned level of EU for an "average" earthquake of a magnitude ranging from 8.0 to 9.9 has little importance.

3. We treated the number of earthquakes reported as being of 8.0 - 9.9 as if they were of 8.0 - 8.9 since there was no breakdown for those in 8.0-89 and 9.0-9.9. We feel that such an assumption has little bearing on the comparative results we sought.

4. For averaging purposes we took the number of earthquakes of, say, 5.0-5.9 which occurred, say, between 1980 and 1989 [14,849], divided it by the number of years involved in the span [10] and came up with: an average of 1,484.9 magnitude 5.0-5.9 earthquakes per year in the 1980-1989 period.

5. For comparison purposes we assumed that earthquakes of 5.0-5.9 had an average magnitude of 5.45. Therefore, when compared with those of a magnitude of 4.0-4.9, we also assumed that their average magnitude was 4.45 and so on.

Therefore if an 8.0-9.9 magnitude earthquake was assigned an arbitrary energy release value of 1 billion EU, then a 5.0-5.9 magnitude earthquake released a corresponding [1,000,000,000 divided by 32 to the third] 30,517.6 EU, a 4.0-4.9 magnitude earthquake released a corresponding [1,000,000,000 divided by 32 to the fourth power] 953.7 EU, etc.

6. To determine "equivalent number of 5.0-5.9 earthquakes" we did as follows:

We consider the above methodology adequate for the task at hand since the resulting increases on the energy released were large enough to absorb any errors associated with the assumptions made, without affecting the overall conclusion.

Of course, should a better qualified reader wish to submit a better method and reprocess all of the data based on his/her method, we will welcome it and consider it.

Addendum of August 21, 2009

When we reissued this document in a more streamlined manner on May 2008 we stated:

... a quick glance to the seismic activity that has taken place since we ran the original calculations clearly show that the trend has accelerated. We could calculate new numbers but, if the people at large have not already believed that our planet and ecosystem is collapsing, a new set of confirming numbers will not make a difference.

As we have said many times before : We propose but it is God Who disposes, therefore it was His Will that we  take a look at the earthquake numbers again  now that we have almost ten more years of data.

We compared the ten year period of 1990 to 1999 with the nine year period of 2000 to 2008. Using the same logic which we have explained above this is what we found:

There has been a 56.10 % increase in the reported seismic activity from the 1990 - 1999 period when compared with the 2000 - 2008 (2008 included) period.

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