Mw 7.7 Taiwan

On 20 September 1999 a major earthquake occurred in Taiwan at a depth of 33 km. The seismic event occurred at 17:47:16 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 7.7.

Critcal planetary geometry occurred primarily on 12 September with the Mercury-Mars-Neptune alignment, normally too far from the seismic event (4.5d>) to count as directly significant. The Mercury-Sun-Jupiter alignment on the 19th was significant, but does not cause major seismic activity on its own. If we look at lunar geometry, we can distinguish three geometric aspects that are statistically highly significant. The first is the Moon's alignment with Mars on the 16th (4.5d<). But decisive were without doubt the Moon's 45° and 135° angles involving all four Jovians within hours on the 17th and 18th. Similar examples among others, can be found in 1906 and in 2015.

Mercury-Mars-Neptune      1999-09-12, 21:35:48  303°54'39"
Mercury-Sun-Venus         1999-09-13,  6:20:16    4°46'29"
Mercury-Sun-Jupiter       1999-09-19, 11:13:13   26°47'25"

Moon-Earth-Jupiter        1999-09-13, 15:41:18   34°21'40"
Moon-Earth-Saturn         1999-09-14, 16:32:13   46°58'17"
Earth-Moon-Mars           1999-09-16, 12:25:47  248°50'04"
Earth-Moon-Neptune        1999-09-20, 22:03:56  301°44'19"

Earth:   Moon-Neptune     1999-09-17,  4:31:47   45°00'00"
Earth:   Moon-Jupiter     1999-09-17,  9:12:56  135°00'00"

Earth:   Moon-Uranus      1999-09-18,  3:56:08   45°00'00"
Earth:   Moon-Saturn      1999-09-18, 10:59:19  135°00'00"
					

SSGI depiction of planetary (PG) and lunar (LG) geometry