Sun & the moon

Sun, moon cause small tremors in California: researchers

It won't send Los Angeles plummeting into the Pacific Ocean, but the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon do stimulate small tremors in the San Andreas Fault, researchers say.

The tidal forces of the sun and moon don't directly trigger earthquakes, but they appear to initiate deep tremors 25 kilometres below the surface. These small tremors can increase the likelihood of future earthquakes above.

"Tremors seem to be extremely sensitive to minute stress changes," said Roland Burgmann, a professor of Earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tremors on the U.S. West Coast have been triggered by seismic waves from earthquakes on the other side of the world, said Burgmann.

"Now we also see that tides — the daily lunar and solar tides — very strongly modulate tremors," he said.

I knew it man. I always had this feeling about that theory.