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LIVE · LAST 30 DAYS

Do quakes follow the Moon?

A second dataset, joined to the first. The Moon’s phase and position are computed for every hour, filed in the lake, and matched to each earthquake by the hour it happened. Is there any pattern?

Read the ten-year investigation: do these patterns survive proper testing? →

Waiting for the first Moon file…

The Moon cycle against earthquakesOne column per UTC day. The row of moons shows the phase as seen from New Zealand.

Earthquakes by where the Moon is in our skyEvery hour of the last 30 days is filed under the Moon’s position over New Zealand, then earthquakes are counted per day the Moon spent there.
Moon positionTime thereQuakesPer dayAgainst averageAvg magBiggestM3+
Earthquakes by phase of the MoonThe same count, grouped by how much of the Moon is lit.
PhaseTime thereQuakesPer dayAgainst averageAvg magBiggestM3+

How the Moon joins the lake

  • Each hour the Worker computes the Moon’s phase, distance and position from a published low-precision lunar series (accurate to about half a degree). No outside service is called.
  • The numbers are saved to the lake as a CSV file, then parsed into a moon table with one row per hour.
  • “Position” is the Moon’s angle across the sky from the middle of New Zealand: overhead, setting, underfoot on the far side of the Earth, then rising again.
  • Because the Moon spends the same time in each position, the table compares quakes per day spent there, not raw counts.

Read with care

Thirty days is about one lunar cycle, and earthquakes cluster: one large quake brings hundreds of aftershocks in the same few days. A swarm landing in one phase can make that phase look busy without the Moon having anything to do with it.

Any real tidal link is expected to be weak. Treat this as a worked example of joining two datasets, not as evidence. The longer the lake runs, the more meaningful the comparison becomes.

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