Is Mother Nature Out to Get Us? CBS News
It certainly feels as if a whole lot of shaking is going on. In the past few months the news has been full of quakes, mudslides and now a massive cloud of volcanic ash spreading over Europe. So is this all part of Mother Nature's discernable displeasure?"Mother Nature is basically random and doesn't really care about us at all," says Dr. Lucy Jones, of the United States Geological Survey. "I think that's the thing that we need to remember."
And the seeming uptick in earthquakes is more perception than reality, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy . On average there are 16 earthquakes of 7 to 7.9 magnitude around the world in any given year. Four months into 2010 we have had six, which is just about average. In fact, a quake the size of the one that hit Baja, Calif., last week -- 7.2 magnitude -- erupts somewhere on the planet every month.
But instead of hitting the middle of the ocean, which they normally do, many of these quakes have struck populated



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