Oklahoma has 31% of Earthquakes In Last 30 Days

The U.S. Geological Society told us last week they are going to release a new hazard map to show how much danger we are in from ground shaking.  After 5 minutes of detective work, I'm totally freaked out.

Did you know Oklahoma had 31.5% of all earthquakes recorded in the US 3.0 and higher in the last 30 days?  Want to freak out a little more?  Oklahoma has 11.7% of the earthquakes in THE ENTIRE WORLD that were recorded as 3.0 or higher in the last 30 days.  Oklahoma, by the way, is about 0.1% of the earth's total land mass.

This is the hazard map for Oklahoma currently.  It's supposed to show how much danger we are in.  It's not really impressive, but you can see there is hazard out there.  When you see this map, you automatically assume that we're ok.  We're used to weather maps where red is bad and blue is ok (or snow).  There is a reason the USGS is updating the map.  It might have something to do with our huge increase in activity in the last few years.  I wasn't really interested until I saw the number of earthquakes that register 3.0 or higher in the United States and in Oklahoma.  There have 149 earthquakes in that range JUST IN THE LAST 30 DAYS.  That is out of 472 recorded in the lower 48 states in the same period and 1,267 in the entire world.

That picture is really scary.  This is 30 days of activity and way too much of it in the place we call home.