Are earthquakes becoming more common? Here’s what the numbers say

Magnitude 5+ earthquakes in the past 30 days. Geoscience Australia, © Commonwealth of Australia, CC BY Whenever there’s a series of destructive or notable earthquakes, scientists get asked the same question: are earthquakes becoming more frequent? Over the past three months, multiple large earthquakes have occurred near population centres around the world, resulting in devastating impacts to people and infrastructure: Philippines (magnitude 7.8) Indonesia (M7.7) Venezuela (M7.5 and…