Are earthquakes and hurricanes related?

[G_j]

http://www.newsweek.com/hurricanes-earthquakes-related-connection-maria-mexico-668305

ARE HURRICANE MARIA AND THE MEXICO EARTHQUAKE RELATED? SCIENTISTS HAVE LINKED SIMILAR NATURAL DISASTERS

BY MAX KUTNER ON 9/20/17 AT 1:52 PM


One reason that earthquakes and hurricanes often seem to happen around the same time is geographic. Many areas that are prone to the severe storms also have seismic activity, as Slate's Brian Palmer pointed out in 2011.

Updated | When multiple natural disasters occur at around the same time, such as the earthquake in Mexico on Tuesday and the arrival of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico on Wednesday, people might be tempted to think that the timing is more than a coincidence.

Hurricanes arise due to interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean, whereas earthquakes are caused by the motions of solid earth. But scientists have long searched for a connection between the two types of natural events, which often occur in succession—as was also the case earlier in September, when another earthquake struck Mexico around the same time Hurricane Irma made landfall.

But some scientists have gone further, suggesting that hurricanes can trigger earthquakes, though perhaps not immediatley. For an area that is "prone to earthquakes," says Shimon Wdowinski of the University of Miami, "heavy rain can increase the probability of getting earthquakes after the wet storm."

Wdowinski studied that phenomenon in Taiwan, which had experienced both types of events. "In that particular environment, already prone to earthquakes, a very wet typhoon," which is the same as a hurricane, "can induce the landslides, and then the removal of the land that comes with the landslides can actually induce earthquakes," he says. This does not happen right away. "There is sometimes a delay of months or sometimes years," he says.

..more...

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Hurricanes May Cause Earthquakes

In August 2011, the Virginia earthquake shook the east coast. Days later, Hurricane Irene may have caused more earthquakes

By Colin Schultz
SMITHSONIAN.COM
APRIL 22, 2013


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hurricanes-may-cause-earthquakes-38447485/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. From what I think I know about earthquakes

(and I'm hardly a seismologist but I've read quite a great deal about them including a book about the 1964 Good Friday Quake in Alaska and one about the history of the San Andreas Fault and earthquake storms) I'd see there is little or no connection between the two events.

It's sort of like the birthday date thing: in any group of 23 people the odds are 50% that two of them will share the same birthday. Nothing weird or spooky or sinister. It's just the way probability works. For a refresher on the actual math, here's a link to the Wiki article on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

And earthquakes are generated well within the earth, so I'm highly skeptical of the notion that landslides can induce earthquakes. Or when they have an effect, it's trivial.