Earthquakes worldwide for the past week

If you happened to be in Concrete, Washington on Sunday last week, you might have felt a slight rumble under your feet at exactly 9:56:05 PM. Barely noticeable, chances are you would have attributed it to a closing door or bad floor joist, but your dog may have barked or a picture frame may have shifted a quarter of a millimeter at the 2.2 magnitude quake. Despite their potential for massive damage, thousands of earthquakes pass every month with only machines taking notice. Enjoy this recent data set from Data.gov and see whats been shaking in your neighborhood.

The thing that this data set seems to say most clearly is that earthquakes are constantly happening, even in relatively geologically benign places. Furthermore, it is not just little quakes. In the past week alone there were dozens of quakes over 5.0 on the richter scale and one 6.2. Luckily, almost all quakes of that size happen under uninhabited places (with some notable exceptions).