Today in Earthquake History

Today's Earthquake Fact:
The Hawaiian Islands are the tops of gigantic volcanoes that formed above a hot spot in the Earth's interior. As the volcanoes grew, they were carried away from the hot spot as the Pacific Plate moves northwestward at about 3 1/2 inches per year.

Year at a Glance

January

Note: All earthquake dates are UTC, not local time.

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Year	Location	Magnitude	Comment

1872	Samaxi (Shemakha), Azerbaijan (Azerbaydzhan, Russia)	5.7	188 killed. Samaxi (Shemakha) almost completely destroyed; all but about 20 buildings had some damage. About 30,000 people homeless. This is in the same area as one of the world's most destructive earthquakes in 1667. The city was severely damaged again on 13 Feb 1902, with possibly several hundred casualties. The 1902 quake caused the city to lose its importance as a silk center, which had been a principal business since the 16th Century. From: N.V. Kondorskaya and N.V. Shebalin, eds., New Catalog of Strong Earthquakes in the U.S.S.R. from Ancient Times through 1977, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center Report SE-31, Boulder, Colorado, 1982. (Update and English translation of Noviy Katalog Sil'nykh Zemlyetryaseniy na Territoriy SSSR s Drevneyshikh Vremyen do 1975 g., USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1977.); and The International Geographic Encyclopedia and Atlas, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1979.

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