Morris County rocked by earthquake. 2.1 on the Richter scale. Randolph not yet swallowed into hell.

Earthquakes, volcanoes, and civilization: Eric Force argues in Geoarchaeology that major ancient civilizations tended to align themselves over major tectonic plate boundaries:

First, he mapped plate boundaries and what archeologists say are the birthplaces of 13 major ancient civilizations. They ranged from Rome and Corinth in Western Europe, to Memphis and Jerusalem in the Middle East, to historic sites in India and China. Then, Force calculated the probability that the sites were randomly located, given that plenty of suitable land was available for settlement. The number crunching suggests that 13 of the 15 sites aren't the product of chance. Instead, ancient people appear to have chosen to snuggle up close to a tectonic crack-- often within 75 kilometers--despite the risk of quakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. (The exceptions were in ancient Egypt and China.) The analysis did find that civilizations farther from plate boundaries seemed to persist longer, perhaps because they had to contend with fewer natural disasters.

Theories abound about why tectonic zones might have boosted the growth of early civilizations, says Force. Geologists know that plate boundaries often have ample water supplies that might have attracted early settlers, for example. And volcanoes can help create rich soils. But no factor explains the pattern, Force says. He is intrigued by a psychological explanation: "Maybe the elders are telling the kids that they'd better be prepared to cope with a lot of risk and change," he says--spurring the next generation to develop more sophisticated quake-resistant architecture, for instance, or create better ways to store food.

That idea appeals to archeologist Geoff Bailey of the University of York in the United Kingdom. "It could be that a certain level of geological instability demands organizational responses from the societies that live in such areas," he says, calling it "a sort of challenge-and-response theory of social development." In his own work, he's even speculated that similar tectonic challenges, and not just factors such as climate change, could have spurred the evolution of humans in Africa. A little shaking up, he suggests, isn't necessarily a recipe for disaster.

There's a pretty convincing takedown at Dienekes' anthropology blog, but still it's food for thought.

Via MeFi.

Put aside anthropogenic climate change; human action can trigger any number of natural disasters, including earthquakes.

Tremors in the crust beneath the North Sea have become more frequent since oil drilling operations began there, and mining operations are also known to increase the frequency of tremors.

Both drilling and mining redistribute the normal stresses present in rocks, but they are not the biggest cause of man-made earthquakes.

"Dams are the most dangerous man-made structure likely to cause quake," says David Booth of the British Geological Survey.

By artificially holding a large volume of water in one place, dams increase pressure on fractures beneath the surface of the earth. What's more, water has a lubricating effect, making it easier for the fractures – or faults – to slip.

Wedding photographers happened to capture the recent earthquake in China while it happened There's also amateur video footage immediately following the quake. Via MeFi and Waxy.

The official death toll in the central Chinese earthquake has now exceeded 12,000, with more than 18,000 people believed to be trapped under rubble in a single city alone.

New analysis: New analysis: California in for a devastating quake within 30 years. More here. I still want to move there anyway.