The 188 Day Major Earthquake Cycle Theory

Have any of you heard of the 188 day major earthquake cycle? It is interesting and while it has its problems, there does seem to be something to it. Briefly, the theory says that every 188 days a major to mega size earthquake happens on a specific geometrical grid on the planet. The supporters of the theory claim that this 188 day cycle is verifiable as far back as earthquake records are kept. There are two problems with this theory that are obvious to me and I know nothing about geology or earthquake frequency. First, there are earthquakes daily throughout the world, so to establish a pattern, one must first limit the quakes used for the theory to 7.0 magnitude and above. Even then, it becomes necessary to cherry pick the data for quakes in the 7.0 range. Secondly, the adherents to this theory always use a Mercator projection map for their line drawings. The earth is not flat people. An Italian sailor figured that out some time ago. So what would their "geometrical lines" look like on a globe and what would the 188 day theory predict then? I cannot not say. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a pattern of sorts, especially in the near term. Here is a list of "cycle" quakes.

Chile earthquake (February 27, 2010) - 8.8 mag
New Zealand earthquake (September 4, 2010) - 7.1 mag
Japan earthquake (March 11, 2011) - 9.1 mag
Fiji earthquake (September 15, 2011) - 7.2

There are 188 days between each of these quakes. If you project out 188 days from the Fiji quake last September, we land somewhere between March 21 and 23 of 2012, which just happens to be next week. If you look at the map above, the guy that made it has narrowed his focus to the western hemisphere and the eastern Pacific. The areas circled in black a more than overdue for a big quake. One of these areas is the New Madrid fault in the south central US. The last time there was a major quake in this zone was December 31, 1811 and it was disastrous; estimated at an 8.8 judged by the records of the time, it rung church bells as far away as the New England coast. It also changed the course of the Mississippi river creating a lake where there was not one before and for a brief time the river actually was flowing backward.  The New Madrid fault is centered in the Tennessee Valley between the states of Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee.

So next week could be interesting to say the least if this theory holds up. If nothing happens, they will be grasping at the data available and probably claim some minor quake as proof of their cycle. We will see. In the mean time, here is a scary video from You Tube about the theory. The scenes from the Matrix are kind of unnecessary in my opinion and the music is bad, but the video presents some interesting "facts". You can sort them out. In the meantime, good luck next Friday.