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felixdingyesterday at 12:42 PM1 replyview on HN

I live in Tokyo. Today's quake felt pretty strong (maybe because I was on the 14th floor) and lasted a while. Haven't felt one this big in months.


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floxyyesterday at 8:53 PM

Is there a disproportionate frequency of earthquakes in Japan? My mental model is that there would be a uniformish distribution of earthquakes all around the Pacific ring-of-fire. But even living in a U.S. state with a Pacific Ocean border (and tsunami warning signs all along the coastal towns), it still seems like Japanese earthquakes outnumber local ones by a wide margin (especially for bigger ones like M7.0+). This could also be explained because Japan has a much higher population density, so earthquakes make headlines easier. And the devastating earthquakes in 2011 could make people more sensitive to earthquakes in Japan. But I guess my question is partially answered by a map of earthquakes on the Wikipedia page about the ring of fire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire#/media/File:EQs_1...

...where is does seem like the West Coast of the North America has lower quake frequency. Here's to hoping the Cascadia subduction zone remains quiet for a while longer.

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