A couple of days ago I pointed out that Luke 21:11 suggests that we will hear about great earthquakes-rather than regular earthquakes-in diverse places prior to the Second Coming of Christ.
- Luk 21:11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
I also said that I would not disagree with people who argue that we have heard about great earthquakes in diverse places recently given the reports of strong earthquakes impacting various places around the world in recent years...
I was curious whether the number of great earthquakes in recent years is comparable to another time period in the past. Yesterday I located some data about past great earthquakes and created a couple of charts that enable us to compare recent years with the past.
- Today I share these charts with you so you can see how great earthquake activity in recent years compares with the past.
I utilized the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) data of magnitude 8 and greater earthquakes since 1900 to create the following chart comparing the number of 8.0+ magnitude and greater earthquakes across different time periods from the year 1900 to today. (link to the chart in case you are unable to see it on your screen):[1]
You will notice that there is no apparent trend in the number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes since 1900. However, the chart does show that there has been a record number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes over the past decade or so.
A skeptic could argue that the results in the above chart are influenced by how I chose to distinguish each time period.
- For instance, I used the period between 2001 to today to define a time period instead of 2000 to 2009 to define a time period…
To address this potential issue, I created this second chart comparing the number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes across different decades from 1900 to today (link to the chart in case you are unable to see it on your screen):
Like the first chart, you will notice that there is no apparent trend in the number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes since 1900. However, the second chart does show that we saw a record number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes from 2000-2009 and we already are off to a quick start in this current time period.
The above charts suggest we are living in a period where there are a historically high number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes around the world.
- However, we should recognize that we are only able to compare time periods over the past several decades. We do not have the data to compare recent years with other time periods over the past 2,000 years…
- Nevertheless, we can say that we have recently seen a historically high number of magnitude 8.0 and greater earthquakes in the timeframe (111 years) that we can account for.
It remains to be seen whether we will see an increasing number of great earthquakes in the coming years, but the number of great earthquakes should increase in the coming years if we are approaching the End Times…
Note
[1] Megaquakes are usually defined as earthquakes that are magnitude 7.0 and greater. I would have preferred to look at magnitude 7.0 and greater earthquakes since 1900, but I was unable to locate data that accounts for every magnitude 7.0 and greater earthquake that has taken place over the past 100 + years across the globe.
