This is a little off topic, but my impression is that there have been a lot of major earthquakes in the past year. Do you know if that's true?
Major quakes are defined as those Magnitude 7.0 and above. In an average year there are 18 of those quakes. With one day to go, there have only been 15 of those quakes worldwide in 2004.
Unless there are 3 7.0+ quakes tomorrow we will have a BELOW average number of major quakes for the fifth year in a row.
Some thread said that 2004 had been a quieter than usual year for quakes and even with this 9 and the earlier 8.1 S. of Australia there would be fewer 7+ quakes than usual. Of course just one 9.0 puts us above average for Biblical level disasters. And to think we thought we'd dodged the big one not quite 2 months ago.
my impression is similar also lots of hurricanes