Hi All,

This week seems to be the week for earthquakes in unusual places. I have to say though I am surprised with the 3 quakes off the coast of Santa Cruz, not nearly so much as those which occurred in Nocona, TX and Cohutta, GA. Those were like out the blue. Then NY does get the occasional quake, so while not as odd as the others, certainly worthy of note.

Of course, this brings about the question as to what may have influenced these quakes to occur? The Santa Cruz quakes could be a sign of on shore stress that is radiating out to a weak point.

As for the Texas and Georgia quakes, my gray cells are tossing up ideas that as a long shot it may be possible the solar flares which have been hitting near the northeast coast of South America could have some influence there.

But for New York, it is most likely just a routine quake, on a fault that has a little stress and is just moving along as faults normally do.

As a side note, has anyone noticed the increase in seismicity in Utah?

If you have any ideas of your own, please feel free to join in here and let's have the benefit of your opinions....Petra

2.2 2003/04/07 23:44:16 36.861N 122.381W 11.9 34 km (21 mi) WSW of Santa Cruz, CA 2.3 2003/04/07 20:44:53 36.826N 122.472W 5.7 43 km (27 mi) WSW of Santa Cruz, CA 2.4 2003/04/07 16:32:36 36.849N 122.462W 5.0 41 km (25 mi) WSW of Santa Cruz, CA

2.9 2003/04/07 10:02:13 33.892 -97.695 5.0 12 km ( 7 mi) NNE of Nocona, TX

2.0 2003/04/08 01:00:31 34.970 -84.930 6.5 2 km ( 1 mi) ENE of Cohutta, GA

3.3 2003/04/08 15:06:14 44.610 -74.381 10.0 27 km ( 17 mi) SSE of Brushton, NY