The earth is moving beneath my feet. All around the shoreline earthquakes attest to the daily action of the crust of the globe. Most action appears around the Pacific Ocean. And as ridiculous as it seems I consider an anthropomorphic view - the pacific ocean stretching its boundaries like a powerful human flexes its arms upon waking. In the past week, 367 earthquakes have been recorded and the majority are around the Pacific with hundreds along the western shore of Chile, south of Santiago ranging from 8.8 to 2.5 on the Richter scale. Odd that the pressure leans in that direction and in the southern hemisphere at that. Or is it odd? It appears lop sided to me. As if there really is a top and bottom to the world and the weight pushes down. The ridge in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was revealed when a route to lay the transatlantic telegraph cable was explored by the HMS Challenger in 1872. The ridge was part of the continuous system of mid-ocean ridges on the floors of all the earth’s oceans. The discovery of this worldwide ridge system led to the theory of sea floor spreading and continental drift. Laws of physics and recent technology shows that the earth is not expanding so what really is happening? Somewhere within the surface some plates must be disappearing under others. Perhaps under Chile where the Andes Mountains are thousands of feet high. This week’s continuing earthquakes are evidence that there is major action under them thar hills.

Update: at 14:02:30 UTC an earthquake of 6.0 magnitude at a depth of 124 miles occurred across the Pacific in the Vanatu region. When push comes to shove, the earth moves.

Naomi Sherer