Correspondences

What is linked, what is not

Each arc joins two phenomena tested on this site. Green and animated: clear link (correlation significant at 5 % after correcting for autocorrelation, or a response outside chance in an event study). Grey: inconclusive test. A statistical link alone does not establish causation.

Clear link
Inconclusive

Hypotheses tested

Clear links

correlation p < 0.05 or epochs outside chance

Causation demonstrated

a correlation demonstrates none

Arc width from |r| of the stored result; several tests between the same phenomena are drawn as stacked arcs.

Hypothesis tested: A claim common in space-weather videos holds that strong geomagnetic storms trigger earthquakes in the following days. Published studies have found no effect (Love & Thomas, 2013).

Events used

288

minimum composite anomaly -0.02 earthquake per day

Days outside chance

out of 11 days tested after the event

Verdict

No effect detected

clear effect: two consecutive days outside the 5–95 % band

Period analysed

1973-01-01 → 2026-10-22

computed on Oct 23, 2026 · engine v1.0

Superposed epochs

Show the data as a table

Mean anomaly around the 288 events, relative to the mean of the days before each event (x axis in days); dashed lines are the 5th and 95th percentiles of composites built on randomly drawn dates (Monte-Carlo).

Aligned series (CSV)

Method and sources

For each intense storm detected in OMNI2 (day of the Dst minimum), the daily number of M ≥ 6 earthquakes in the USGS catalogue is expressed as the departure from the mean of the ten previous days, then averaged over all storms. The 5–95 % band comes from 1,000 draws of random dates; an effect would be accepted if the composite left the band on two consecutive days.

Computation parameters

{
    "draws": 1000,
    "events": "day of Dst minimum of storms with Dst ≤ −100 nT (OMNI2)",
    "response": "daily number of M ≥ 6 earthquakes (USGS ComCat), anomaly to the 10 days before",
    "after_days": 10,
    "before_days": 10,
    "significance": "at least two consecutive days outside the Monte-Carlo 5–95 % band"
}

Inputs : omni.dst.hourly (559,191 pts, run #133) · usgs.earthquakes.m6.yearly (127 pts, run #158)

Reading this result

With nearly 300 storms and over 50 years of earthquakes, the composite stays within the random band every day: no triggering appears at this scale. The test cannot rule out a very weak or regional effect. Correlation is not causation: common factors (seasons, cycles, trends) or coincidence can produce it. The p-values account for autocorrelation (effective n) but not for preprocessing choices; the confidence interval comes from a block bootstrap. The limits of the source data apply.

SOURCES OF THIS PAGE

OMNI2 hourly near-Earth solar wind and geomagnetic indices: King, J. H., & Papitashvili, N. E. (2005). Solar wind spatial scales in and comparisons of hourly Wind and ACE plasma and magnetic field data. J. Geophys. Res., 110, A02104. OMNI2 data from NASA/GSFC SPDF OMNIWeb; Kp/ap from GFZ Potsdam, Dst from WDC Kyoto, F10.7 from NRC Canada (Penticton). · doi:10.1029/2004JA010649 · source page ↗
Licence : NASA data, public domain; acknowledge SPDF/OMNIWeb and the index providers · retrieved on Oct 23, 2026 · SHA-256 6de9b217bd4b…
USGS ComCat earthquakes M ≥ 4.5 (FDSN event service): U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Hazards Program (2017). Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) Comprehensive Catalog of Earthquake Events and Products. Accessed through the FDSN event web service. · doi:10.5066/F7MS3QZH · source page ↗
Licence : U.S. Government work, public domain; cite USGS ANSS ComCat · retrieved on Oct 23, 2026 · SHA-256 c1e3c08c2c8f…
Love et al. (2013): Love, J. J., & Thomas, J. N. (2013). Insignificant solar-terrestrial triggering of earthquakes. Geophysical Research Letters, 40(6), 1165–1170. · doi:10.1002/grl.50211
Licence : Published literature; cited
Urata et al. (2018): Urata, N., Duma, G., & Freund, F. (2018). Geomagnetic Kp index and earthquakes. Open Journal of Earthquake Research, 7, 39–52. · doi:10.4236/ojer.2018.71003
Licence : Published literature; cited

Geomagnetic storms and earthquakes Do storms trigger earthquakes?

What is linked, what is not