The 6th major quake in 4 days struck last night and the 2nd to hit Japan on Thursday when a magnitude 6.4 - 252km SE of Iwo Jima, earlier in the day a mag 6.0 struck the same area.
The mag 6.0 - 263km SE of Iwo Jima, Japan is the 56h major quake in the last 4 days, 5 more than the entire month of June.
The last few days have seen a massive coronal hole opened up on the Sun ejecting a stream of solar wind flowing from an enormous 700,000 km-long coronal hole possibly influencing quake and volcanic activity here on Earth and it comes as no surprise to me we have had a flurry of major quakes this week after the lowest count so far this century.
On top of the major quakes, we have also had an uptick with volcanic activity with nearly two dozen quakes striking the gigantic Katla volcano in Iceland and Japanese authorities are preparing to evacuate Kuchinoerabujima island after the threat of an eruption as earthquakes and sulphur emissions have suddenly increased dramatically.
The massive coronal hole has now turned away from facing the Earth, however, another massive hole is turning toward Earth.
According to Spaceweather.com, the ragged horseshoe-shaped hole in the sun's atmosphere is turning toward Earth, spewing a stream of high-speed solar wind toward our planet.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the structure earlier today: This is a "coronal hole," a region in the sun's atmosphere where magnetic fields open up and allow solar wind to escape.
Coronal holes are a primary form of space weather during solar minimum--that is, now.
Studies show that coronal holes not only open more frequently, but also last longer when sunspots are absent.
During the last solar minimum in 2007-2009, one coronal hole stayed open for 27 consecutive solar rotations.
As the sun slowly turned on its axis, that hole fire-hosed Earth with a stream of solar wind almost once a month for nearly two years.
For comparison, this coronal hole has only been around twice.
It is a youngster.
Last nights quake was the 8th major quake of August and the 61st of 2018.
Space weather
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