Many people here in Turkey will think solar eclipse triggered this. Strong 1999 earthquake in Turkey also happened just some weeks after the full solar eclipse. I think it is just a coincidence though.
r/conspiracy aside, looks like the redditor's main theory is that there is some sort of casual link between solar flares and earthquakes. Should be an easy thing for a data scientist to debunk or validate...
He predicted an earthquake in the Philippines and other areas that didn't happen 2 months ago and one in New Zealand 1 month ago. He also made a prediction for a 9.0 earthquake in Nepal after the eclipse and slowly dropped the number over the days to fish out a "prediction". He was also hedging his bets on this earthquake and was giving preference to Japan, not Mexico.
The guy's a charlatan that was basically throwing predictions at the wall till they stuck and is now hoping no one notices his failures.
I disagree. I've read some of his forecasts and he's getting better over time. He put Mexico within the sphere of possibilities.
I think there's something to his solar flare theory. It may not be the only the only piece, but it seems to be a piece. He'll have an uphill battle to fight but it's fun to read his stuff.
Actually, back in high school I did some statistics and found a link between tidal forces and earthquakes. Which is reasonable as the crust does flex a little.
An eclipse means the moon earth and sun are in a line which maximizes the net tidal forces. However, you can get the same impact from a lunar eclipse. It's also not much stronger than a normal full moon.
Anyway, the effect was not that strong, but I have seen it validated by other studies. The problem is say a 50% increase in odds for the next hour can be statistically significant, but the odds for a random hour are so low it's just not that useful.
PS: Best data was actually micro quakes near volcano's, but they are so tiny as to be mostly meaningless.
Sort of; they found that the probability of a quake along shallow thrust faults increases about 3x during full and new moons in general (of which an eclipse is a special case, with no special risk):
Tides have an influence on earthquakes [1], but spring tides due to Sun and Moon lining up happen about twice a month, so I don't think that the Eclipse is a likely cause.
"Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake strikes off Mexico's coast. A Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake was predicted by a Redditor just a day earlier on this subreddit."
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6yss3m/magnitud...