Mw 6.9 Offshore Valparaiso, Chile

On 24 April 2017 a strong earthquake occurred Offshore Valparaiso, Chile at a depth of 10 km. The seismic event occurred at 21:38:27 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.9. A foreshock with a moment magnitude 6.0 occurred a day earlier.

Two planetary alignments on the 19th and 20th, both involving Earth preceded the earthquake, that occurred late on the 24th as lunar geometry started to peak 14 into the 25th. The Venus-Mercury-Mars alignment had a long duration as the separation was still within 1° on the 22nd. Instrumental was the subsequent alignment of the Moon with Venus on the 23rd, about 24 hours before the earthquake.

Venus-Mercury-Mars        2017-04-19, 21:37:42   67°12'09"
Sun-Mercury-Earth         2017-04-20,  5:47:12  210°06'21"

Earth-Moon-Neptune        2017-04-22, 19:27:50  343°14'52"
Earth-Moon-Venus          2017-04-23, 21:02:38  358°00'31"
					

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