approximately how many earthquakes, worldwide, are strong enough to be felt each year?
Most of the world’s earthquakes take place in the Pacific Ring of Fire, and some seismologists are warning that a single quake may claim the lives of millions of people if it occurs in a mega-city such as Tokyo. In the pre-Middle Ages, earthquakes were though to be caused by “air in the cavities of the Earth”. Pliny the Elder called earthquakes “underground thunderstorms”. In Norse mythology, earthquakes were explained as the violent struggling of the god Loki. In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the cause and god of earthquakes. There are many more earthquakes that happen every year around the  world than most people know about. There are about 3 million  earthquakes that occur every year but most o … f them are very mild  and not felt. Jordan DuBaere. 4,493 Contributions. Geologists estimate that about 500,000 earthquakes occur each year in the world. Of these, about 100,000 are strong enough to be felt by people, and about 100 earthquakes cause damage. Minor earthquakes occur nearly constantly around the world in places like California and Alaska in the U.S., as well as in the Middle East and Asia. Larger earthquakes occur less frequently, the relationship is exponential, and is known as the Gutenberg-Richter law. Earthquakes that are strong enough to be felt strike Canada nearly every week, destructive ones happen every few years or decades, and unfortunately, some of the world’s strongest earthquakes ravage Canada in cycles roughly every hundred years. Our knowledge of the first Canadian earthquakes is full of voids and inaccuracies since the major source of this information is Huron oral tradition. Apparently, the earthquake history of Canada dates back in the mid 1500s. The most significant and strong were: Miramachi earthquake (1982, magnitude 5.8), Nahanni earthquakes (1985, magnitude 6.9) , Nisqually earthquake (2001, magnitude 6.8), Vancouver Island earthquake (2004, magnitude 6.7) and another Queen Charlotte Islands earthquake (2008, magnitude 6.5). Seismic activity in Canada is surprisingly high when compared with other countries. Approximately 4,000 earthquakes shake Canadian soil every year. Most of these earthquakes aren’t strong enough to be felt, but this serious hazard shouldn’t be underestimated. Answer by SBDW1 _. Confidence votes 23.9K. According to the US Geological Survey there are approximately 1,000,000 earthquakes around the world every year (although the vast majority of these are so small they can only be detected by sensitive scientific equipment). Of these 1,000,000, approximately 1/10 are large enough to be felt by humans. This means that on any day there will be on average 275 earthquakes around the world that can be felt. Reload the page to try again! Press Cmd-0 to reset your zoom. Press Ctrl-0 to reset your zoom. It looks like your browser might be zoomed in or out. Your browser needs to be zoomed to a normal size to record audio. Determine the distance between an earthquake and seismic station if the first S wave arrives three minutes after the first P wave.
100,000