First a disclaimer: I'm neither a geologist, a geophysicist, an astronomer, or a seismologist. I am simply an interested layperson. I also am an individual who lives in reality. The real reality. Where I wish everyone else lived, too.
Make the jump:
Anincredibly stupid article was posted on Yahoo's "Space" outlet, which I've long learned is not a place to go if you want to read any real science. In it, it talks about a "supermoon," or an alleged phenomenon that speculates that when the moon comes close in its orbit (this is called perigee) to the Earth and if it's full (which it will be on March 19th of this year), massive damage from all sorts of environmental phenomenoa occur.
This is being hyped by an astrologer which should be the first alarm. An. Astrologer. These are people who pretty much just make things up.
Coupled with the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, and March 11th's massive M9 quake off of northeast Japan, this has set the interwebs to a level of moronitude unseen in quite some time.
A lot of this really is merely a function of our biology. For some reason, whatever reason, we've evolved to see patterns and correlations where they don't probably don't exist. It's why we see faces in clouds and random Jesus images in burnt toast. Rising above that is tough, even for hard-nosed skeptics like myself.
Phil Plait is always a good go-to resource: No, the Supermoon did not cause the japanese earthquake.
While there isn’t much I can do to directly help the situation in Japan, I do hope I can help mitigate the panic and worry that can happen due to people blaming this earthquake on the so-called "supermoon" — a date when the Moon is especially close to the Earth at the same time it’s full. So let me be extremely clear:
Despite what a lot of people are saying, there is no way this earthquake was caused by the Moon.
The idea of the Moon affecting us on Earth isn’t total nonsense, but it cannot be behind this earthquake, and almost certainly won’t have any actual, measurable affect on us on March 19, when the full Moon is at its closest.
He then demonstrates, quite well, now the Earth-moon system functions, and so on. It's well worth the read, especially, considering, he's an astronomer who probably knows what he's talking about.
It certainly is true that our buddy, the moon, has a tidal effect on Earth. This is pretty obvious, and is well taught and well understood, even though Bill O'Reilly was too stupid to understand it. Scientists have looked for a connection between earthquakes and the moon and found the correlation to be really, really weak.
Many studies in the past have shown no significant correlations between the rate of earthquake occurrence and the semi-diurnal tides when using large earthquake catalogs.
Several recent studies, however, have found a correlation between earth tides (caused by the position of the moon relative to the earth) and some types of earthquakes.
One study, for example, concludes that during times of higher earth and ocean tides, such as during times of full or new moon, earthquakes are more likely on shallow thrust faults near the edges of continents and in (underwater) subduction zones. Lunar or solar eclipses represent, of course, special cases of full and new moon, but do not cause any special or different tidal effects from full and new moon. Earth tides (Earth's surface going up and down by a couple of centimeters) and especially ocean tides (surface of the ocean going up and down by a meter or more) raise and lower the confining pressure on shallow, dipping faults near continental edges and in subduction zones. When the confining pressure is lessened, the faults are unclamped and more likely to slip. The increased probability is a factor of ~3 during high tides. But you must stop are realize that the background probability is, in general, very low in a given place and year (fractions of a percent), so that raising this tiny probability by a factor of 3 during high tides still results in a very tiny probability.
that above quote may read compelling, but consider the fact that the moon isn't even near perigee and won't be, for several more days.
Erik Klemetti has an equally fascinating article on the subject.
I know there has long been a desire to show about the gravitational resonance of planets/comets/asteroids/the sun might play a role in Earth's geologic activity - and with some logic. We see the interaction of the Earth's surface with the Moon's gravity (and to some extent the Sun's) with the tides in the oceans. Water has low viscosity so the tidal tugging of the moon as it rotates around the Earth sloshes the oceans back and forth to create our tides. One could imagine that the Earth's crust/mantle/core might feel some of that gravitational interaction as well - and they do. John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington, mentions that during full and new moons - when the moon is oriented between or opposite the Earth and the sun - there is potentially as much as a 1% increase in earthquake activity worldwide (and a slightly higher effect on volcanic activity).
Let me repeat that: 1%. In any natural, geologic process that is mostly distributed randomly through time like earthquakes, 1% or there about is well within the "noise" of processes, so would these alignments produce much of a discernable increase? Probably not and this is with the two bodies that play the largest role in tidal forcing on Earth. There are other studies that suggest that this tidal tugging and pulling can cause small shifts in fault systems like the San Andreas, but one might argue that the moon is, in fact, "passively" releasing seismic energy on the fault, thus preventing or delaying large earthquakes! Trying to say that any other astronomical body might, even in some specific alignment, might cause more than a 1% increase in the chance of activity is remote at best.
and
Now, as for the Moon's relative position to Earth and its effect, the Moon when it is at least closest is 356,401 km from the Earth's surface and at its furthest, it is 406,700 km (with an average distance of 384,401 km. That is a difference of ~50,300 km ~ in other words, when the Moon is closest to Earth, it is ~12% closer than it is at its furthest. Newtonian physics tells us that the attraction between the Earth and the Moon is dictated by F = GM1M2/R2, where M1 and M2 are the masses of the Earth and Moon, G is the gravitational constant and R is the distance between the two bodies. Even a ~12% change in that value means that the force of gravity, in Newtons, only changes by ~30% at maximum (and only ~11% difference from average), a change that happens gradually as the Moon moves around its orbit. We see this fairly small change with different sized tides, but even those changes are not "disastrous". When you consider the energy needed to move tectonic plates (or even the oceans), this change in gravitational energy from the Earth-Moon system is small. Remember, that the Moon is at its closest once a month, so just because it happens during a full moon doesn't mean that the gravitational pull from the Moon is any stronger than it would be at any other perigee. Remember, the Moon reaches perigee every month and you don't see massive earthquakes and eruptions every time this happens.
One of the problems of our information age, I think, is that there's a glut of information, and coupled with the human predisposition for "post hoc ergo propter hoc" thinking, this is going to lead to a lot of pseudoscience bullshittery. That's just what I think.
Thankfully, we have quite a few people who know what they're talking about, and have the ability to disseminate knowledge to the masses, even in the cruel, dumb days we seem to be living under now thanks to 30+ years of anti-science bullshit. Quite frankly, we need more of them.
On another, less angry grain (can you tell that I hate, hate, hate, hate pseudoscience? I'll cut people off over it...really!), here are places you can donate to the quake effort. I don't believe in prayer; I believe in actual action, and since I can't go there, this is the next best thing I can do.
The Red Cross
ShelterBox
Oxfam
Consider donating to one of the above, or your charity of choice, to help all those impacted by this disaster.