And a couple of typhoons and a hurricane building and a few storms and tornadoes, horses dying from Hendra virus........and a plague of locusts into the bargain somewhere no doubt. Get a job in disaster management Aston, you'll soon realise how much is going on daily but never makes the news - its actually really quiet at present, long may it last

Aston, you are not the first person to ask this. Just about everyone knows about ocean tides being caused by the moon, but did you know that the moon also causes earth tides? The whole 'solid' earth gets deformed by the pull of the moon's gravity. I think the surface goes up and down by about 30 cm every month. So it is valid to ask whether this deforming of the earth's shape is enough to influence the movements of tectonic plates, and so trigger more earthquakes.

It seems that nobody can prove it one way or the other, it's likely that there is a very small effect but not enough to earth-shattering

Here, look at this
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/earthq...keSunMoon.html

and this
http://www.platetectonics.com/article.asp?a=37&c=14

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As the moon is always there (and doesn't come and go with the phases of the moon) the earth is being squeezed all the time. The tidal influences of the moon will affect all parts of the earth once a day. Or rather twice as the squeeze cause a rise on the side closest to the moon and the side furthest away from the moon. The deformation (of water and solid earth) is caused more by the squeezing of the moon's gravity rather than the pull of the moon's gravity.

The squeezing will be slightly more at full moon than quarter moon but will be slightly more again at new moon. The increase in squeeze at full moon and new moon is quite small compared to the squeeze that is happening all the time.


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