A barrage of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have recently hit the earth – is this continuing trend a sign of the end-times?
Earthquakes in the Bible
In the Bible there are specific earthquake events, such as during the war of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38. Other examples include Zechariah 14:4, Revelation 6:12 and Revelation 11:13.
But then there are earthquakes to come upon the earth as a sign of the end-times. In the Olivet Discourse, as documented in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus tells of earthquakes along with other signs such as pestilence and famine.
We see this in Luke 21:11, “and there will be great earthquakes.”
And also in the parallel scripture in Mark 13:8, “there will be earthquakes in various places.”
The Greek word for various can even mean daily, or day-by-day, implying a frequency to these quakes. From these scriptures we can expect earthquakes of greater intensity and greater frequency in the end-times.
In this post we are going to focus on this second class of earthquakes. That is, the ones that will be a sign of His coming.
Which Earthquakes are Notable?
Earthquakes are much more common than we think. According to the USGS, they record an average of 20,000 earthquakes each year. That’s about 55 a day. Most of these we don’t even feel.
But with pestilence and famine raging in the world, it’s worth paying attention to unusual earthquake activity.
So I started by looking at recent news. Here are a few that seemed potentially significant.
- Croatia – a 5.3 quake is the largest in 120 years
- Turkey – an earthquake of a 6.8 magnitude killed at least 36 people and injured approximately 1,600. An unusual effect occurred after the earthquake – a river turned red, like blood, reminiscent of the Egyptian plagues.
- Turkey/Iran border – a series of earthquakes destroyed 1,066 buildings just before the Jewish holiday of Purim
- Idaho – a 6.5 magnitude quake was the largest since a record 6.9 quake hit in 1983
- Red Sea – a 4.6 magnitude quake shook the area near where the Israelites were believed to have crossed
- Israel & Vatican City – in May three earthquakes, two in Israel and one in Italy, took place in the same hour. According to Breaking Israel News, Rabbis believe that as the third temple comes closer to reality, the existence of the Vatican becomes more offensive to the king whose throne was in Israel.
- Utah – A 5.7-magnitude earthquake dislodged a symbolic part of the Mormon temple. An angel statue atop its highest spire literally dropped its trumpet. This occurred three weeks after the Utah House approved a bill that essentially decriminalizes polygamy.
Earthquakes over the Last 100 Years
It is difficult to say the prophetic implications of any of the above quakes, but through experience I have come to believe more in signs than coincidences.
So while there have been some potentially significant earthquakes lately that doesn’t tell us whether frequency or intensity is increasing.
According the the USGS, earthquakes have not grown more frequent or stronger over the past 100 years. After a review, their response amounted to “nothing to see here.”
The USGS attributed the perceived increase in quakes to more and better quality sensors. This seems plausible, after all, technology and accessibility of locations has increased tremendously over the past 100 years.
But film producer Brent Miller Sr. wanted to verify this for himself. He undertook an analysis to determine what the data shows.
Downloading data from the USGS, his team analyzed it for trends. To keep the years comparable, they removed any quakes that would not have been detectable 100 years prior. Those conditions cut off earthquakes below a 6.3 magnitude.
The results were astonishing. As detailed on this video on YouTube put out by Prophecy Watchers, the data shows that the frequency and intensity of earthquakes have indeed increased alarmingly.
They performed this study a number of years ago, so I downloaded the data from the USGS myself to get an update. I added a liner trend-line in red and a 10-year moving average in green. Not surprisingly, the same trend has continued for the next ten years after their study. I present this data in the chart below.
Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes – Disturbing Trends
While Jesus did not specifically mention volcanic eruptions in the Olivet Discourse, they are closely related to earthquakes.
The map below shows current eruptions. You can easily see that most of the activity is concentrated around an area of the Pacific known as the Ring of Fire.
According to National Geographic, The Ring of Fire is home to 452 volcanoes, more than 75% of active volcanoes existing today. This area also experiences about 90% of the world’s earthquakes and 81% of the world’s largest earthquakes. In fact, 22 of the world’s 25 largest volcanic eruptions over the last 11,700 years occurred at volcanoes in the Ring of Fire.
Like earthquakes, there appears to have been unusual activity lately. According to Breaking Israel News, there were about 25 significant volcano eruptions globally in the first 18 years of this century compared with approximately 65 in the entire 20th century.
Recently Significant Volcanic Events
Some potentially significant volcanic events are as follows:
- Iceland – the Reykjanes peninsula has incurred more than 8,000 earthquakes and about 10 centimeters of land uplift due to magma intrusions underground. The last time this region experienced volcanic activity was 800 years ago.
- Indonesia – Mount Kerinci in West Sumatra, Mount Semeru in East Java and Mount Merapi in the Central Java mountain range produced increased activity in April on the same day that the Anak Krakatau volcano erupted. However, their activity was unrelated because they are sourced from different magma chambers.
- Mexico – Last Thursday, Mount Popocatepetl, Mexico’s most active volcano erupted with lava and clouds of ash. The eruption was reported to have shot glowing rocks 20,000 feet into the sky. Mount Popocatepetl sits about 43 miles from Mexico City, making it one of the most potentially dangerous volcanoes on Earth. Authorities issued a yellow phase 2 alert, meaning the volcano showed signs of elevated unrest.
- Yellowstone – according to Newsweek, in an area of the caldera of the Yellowstone supervolcano there has been record ground swelling in periods between 2013 and 2018. This was determined to be the the result of a rising magma chamber 600 feet below the ground.
- Yellowstone – In a related phenomenon, the Steamboat Geyser, the tallest in the world, hit its record in 2018 with 32 eruptions and then smashed the record in 2019 with 48 eruptions. The Yellowstone supervolcano is considered the most dangerous volcano in the world, but has a low chance of erupting. According to the article, Dan Dzurisin, one of the study authors assures us, “this activity was common, so there is no reason to be concerned.”
Are Volcanic Eruptions Trending Upwards?
According to the Smithsonian Institution, as of April 17th, there have been 52 confirmed eruptions during 2020 from 52 different volcanoes; 7 of those were new eruptions that started during the year.
To see if there has been an upward trend in volcanic eruptions, I downloaded data from the Smithsonian Institution. This chart is a summary of that data and shows the number of new volcanic eruptions since 1900.
I added a liner trend-line in red and a 10-year moving average in green.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in the data that would allow me to filter out small eruptions from significant ones. However, it certainly seems that from this data, that there had been an upward trend in volcanic eruptions since the turn of the 20th century.
Interestingly, the peaks and troughs of new volcanic eruptions align pretty well with the peaks and troughs from the earthquake chart above. We should expect this considering earthquake and volcanic activity tend to go hand in hand, particularly in the Ring of Fire.
What to Make of the Increases in Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions?
We are fortunate that Jesus gave us signs that will lead to His coming (see post Prophetic Signs Appearing Daily). I believe from the data that we are seeing increasing trends in earthquake activity just as Jesus said would happen. This by itself means little, but when combined with the other signs such as pestilence, famine, persecution and intolerance, it is significant.
Jesus is coming soon.