This summer has brought no shortage of earthquakes. Earlier this week, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake shook western Colombia, causing widespread damage and killing at least 169 people.
In June, four massive earthquakes struck different parts of the world ― Northern California, Venezuela and Japan ― within a span of eight hours.
The string of major earthquakes in recent months has left many wondering whether the quakes are connected and if the frequency of earthquakes we’ve been experiencing is out of the ordinary.
As unnerving as all the earthquake news has felt, geologists say there’s nothing atypical about the current earthquake patterns.
“It may feel like we’re having an unusually large number of earthquakes, but statistically, this has been a fairly normal year,” said Wendy Bohon, a geologist who studies earthquakes.
