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Moon's Tug¹ Doesn't Cause Big Quakes

On March 27th, 1964, a huge earthquake struck the Prince William Sound, off the coast of Alaska. "Out in the gulf² of Alaska, the ocean bottom plunges³, then heaves upward a full 50 feet, and a wave starts racing⁴ toward the shore…

1964年3月27日，阿拉斯加海岸的威廉王子湾发生了一次大地震。“CLIP：”在阿拉斯加海湾里，海底陷入深渊，然后向上仰起整整50英尺，一股浪潮开始冲向岸边。”

In 2016, Japanese researchers concluded that large earthquakes might indeed be more likely to occur during times of significant tidal stress… when it's either a new or full moon. And the news rumbled⁵ through the media, despite the study's small sample size, of just a dozen large quakes.

在2016年，日本研究人员得出结论称，大地震更有可能发生在有重大潮汐的时候......无论是新月还是满月。尽管研究的样本量很小，但仍然通过媒体造成了十几个大地震。

Now seismologist Susan Hough of the U.S. Geological Survey has done a much larger analysis. She plotted more than 200 big quakes--magnitude 8.0 or above--over the past four centuries, looking to see if they were more likely to strike on certain days of the year, or during key phases of the moon. The answer, neatly⁶ summed up in the study's one-word abstract? "No."

现在美国地质调查局的地震学家Susan Hough做了一个更大的分析。在过去的四个世纪里，她绘制了超过200次8.0级以上的大地震图谱，看看是否有可能在一年中的某些日子里，或月球引力的关键时期发生地震。在研究的摘要中整齐地概括了答案?“没有。”

The study is in the journal Seismological Research Letters. That's not to say we don't know of certain factors that actually do increase the risk of quakes. Hough says the ground injection of wastewater, oil and gas production, fracking, and damming up waterways can in some cases cause quakes. Just don't blame it on the moon.

这项研究结果发表在《地震学研究通讯》杂志上。这并不是说，我们不知道某些因素实际上增加了地震的风险。Hough说，地面注入废水，石油和天然气生产出来，水力压裂并堵塞了水道，在某些情况下可能导致地震。只是不要把帐算在月球上。