Will March 19 'Supermoon' Trigger Natural Disasters ???

On March 19 , the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years , lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On  top of that, it will be full. And  one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet .

Richard  Nolle , a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closet approach during its orbit) an "extreme supermoon." When the moon goes super-extreme , Nolle says, chaos will ensue  :Huge storms, earthquakes , volcanoes and other natual disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)The question is is not actually so crazy. In fact scientists have studied related scenarios for decades , even under normal conditions, the moon is close enough to earth to make its weighty presence felt : It causes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.

The moon's gravity can even cause small but measureable ebbs and flows in the continents , called "land tides" or  "solid Earth tides," too. The tides are greatest during full and new moons, when the sun and moon is aligned either on the same or opposite sides of the Earth.

According to John Vidale, a seisomologist at the University of Washington in  Seattle  and director of the Pacific Northweat Seismic Network, particularly dramatic land and  ocean tides do trigger earthquakes . Both the moon  and the sun do stress the earth a tiny bit , and when we look hard we can see a very small increase in tectonic activity when they're aligned ," Vidale told  Life's Little Mysteries . a sister site of  SPACE.com. At times of the full and new moons , you see a less-than-1-percent increase in earthquake activity, and a slightly higer responce  in  volcanoes."

What about during a lunar perigee? Can we expec t more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on March 19, when the full moon is so close? The moon's gravitational pull at lunar perigee , the scientist say, is not different enough from its pull at other times to significantly change the height of the tides and thus the likelihood of natural disasters."A lot of studies have been done on  this kind of thing by  SUGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, told Life Little Mysteries . " The have not found anything significant at all."

Vidale concurred, "Practically speaking, you'll never  see any effect of lunar perigee," he said, "It's somewhere between. 'It has no affect' and it's so small you don't see the effect. The bottom line is, the upcoming supermoon won't cause a preponderance of earthquakes, although the idea isn't a crazy one."

"Earthquakes don't respond as much to the tides as you'd think they would . There should actually be more of an effect ," said Vidale. "Most natural disasters have nothing to do with the moon at all. The Earth has a lot of pent up enegry, and it releases it anytime the buildup gets too great . The supermoon probably won't push it past the tipping point , but we will know for sure one way or the other, by March 20.

http://life's%20little%20mysteries/
http://%20space.com/