Hi all;

I investigated the claim that astrological crosses have something to do with earthquakes.

First I wrote a program to find them. A cross configuration is defined as an arrangement wherein 4 bodies are at 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees from one another, within a predefined limit.

I used a 5 degree "orb" for this study and found 627 days where this was true in the 1900-2006 period.

Then I added in all quakes of mag 7+ and counted the matches. There were 39081 total days and 627 cross days which is 1.4% of the time. There were 1709 quakes of which 30 were on cross days.

The odds on this happening by chance are <0.00001

Now does this prove anything? I don't think so, because even if it was a true causative factor it would be useless. There is no way to say which one will bring a quake, it happens VERY seldom and there is no way to tell where the quake will happen.

So it goes in the "interesting but useless" pile.

Roger