“The first mainshock was slightly stronger than the second with an estimated difference of 0.11. This corresponds to one of the largest tremors in over 2,000 years of Turkish history.” (phys.org article)

I’ve looked at earthquake raw data myself. Data is easily manipulated by people who do not understand proper statistical data analysis and hypothesis testing. Without applying proper approach statistically, its easy to make data fit a predetermined narrative.

Usually the ploy is to use anecdotal data or point observations and then jump to conclusions that cannot be supported statistically. Unless you are a researcher or mathematician, you likely would not understand that point observations outside the context of statistical analysis is almost worthless and certainly can be misleading. This happens all the time with climate change data.

I am an engineer by training with many years of test and evaluation experience so I understand a little about data and analysis. I have not yet done a statistical analysis of the earthquake data. However, I did a qualitative analysis to present some observations here as a start. The statistical analysis is in progress.

The Lord said to look for signs that would come like birth pangs. So what do labor contractions look like? I recall when my children were born. I was there. Barely made it to the hospital with one of them. The contractions gradually start, ramp up to a peak and then decreases. If true labor, then the next one comes a few minutes later and is a little stronger. Ramp-up, peak, then ramp-down. This continues until there is a period in labor called “transition” – very strong contractions that come very fast in which the birth of the baby is about to happen. I believe this is the general behavior of a birth pang sign.

With that pattern in view, what we might expect is an earthquake trend that gradually increases to a maximum, followed by a gradual ramp-down in intensity and then a period of less earthquake activity until the cycle begins again. The period between the maximums would decrease and then there would be a longer period of more powerful earthquakes akin to “transition” prior to birth. A few things to keep in mind:

• Jesus does not provide specific details regarding how to assess a very general statement about earthquakes. He speaks about location and implied intensity and frequency (birth pangs). So the clues are location, magnitude, and frequency when looking across the gospels.
• Earthquakes as a birth pang sign is interesting. Its almost as if he were speaking to a time when it was possible to measure earthquake data. Its not like there were seismometers and seismologists in the first century. It wasn’t until mid 20th century that the capability to measure and record earthquake data was available (magnitude, depth, location, etc). Now we have the technology to get very precise earthquake reports, a standard of measurement, and access to earthquake historical data at our fingertips.
• I see some presentations that go back centuries, but I don’t believe its valid to include data prior to 1935 (the year the Richter Scale was developed).

Presented below is a data visualization of earthquake data from 2002 – Present. It’s a little hard to see on a smartphone…sorry. I split the total time period into two parts because its quarterly data over a period of about 20 years. The bars are number of earthquakes greater than or equal to 4.0. The line represents the maximum magnitude earthquake measured during each quarter.

Here are observations about the data (magnitude 4.0 and greater):

• 361,998 data points (earthquakes) magnitude 4.0 and greater are included in the data set.
• There was an 81.39% increase in number of earthquakes and a 4.00% increase in earthquake magnitude. Both were trending up between January 2002 and January 2023.
• Numbers of earthquakes started trending up on July 2020, rising by 18.10% (599) over 10 quarters.
• The number of earthquakes dropped from 3720 to 3391 (8.8%) during its steepest decline between April 2008 and January 2010.
• Number of earthquakes also trended down between October 2013 and October 2019 with a drop of 355.
• There was a significant change in trend, rising by 599 starting July 2020.

Typically, earthquake data is presented in yearly graphs but that masks what is going on quarter by quarter. If you scan the above plots yourself what do you see in the quarterly data? Perhaps you can see the up and down trends. Does this fit the description of birth pangs or labor contractions as the Lord indicated?

What do you think?