Mw 6.6 Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands

On 8 October 2017 a strong earthquake occurred at the Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands at a depth of 121 km. The seismic event occurred at 22:34:33 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.6.

Two planetary alignments on 5 and 8 October preceded the earthquake. However, these alignments are not known to be overly critical and we have to take into consideration the high lunar peaks during the week reaching 17, which may have been the primary reason for the stress release at the Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands at that point in time. A closer look at the lunar geometry shows that the Moon made critical geometry with three outer planets within only a few hours. It is the kind of geometry that causes seismic activity to increase, often resulting in an occurrence of (low) 6 magnitude earthquakes above average for several days or even weeks, depending on which outer planets are involved.

Earth-Venus-Mars          2017-10-05, 16:49:26  168°58'22"
Mercury-Sun-Earth         2017-10-08, 20:37:26   15°30'42"

Earth:   Moon-Neptune     2017-10-03, 12:24:32    0°00'00"
Earth:   Moon-Uranus      2017-10-03, 12:31:07   45°00'00"
Earth:   Moon-Jupiter     2017-10-03, 14:59:15  135°00'00"

Earth:   Moon-Neptune     2017-10-06, 18:36:40   45°00'00"
Earth:   Moon-Uranus      2017-10-06, 18:37:27    0°00'00"
Moon:    Earth-Jupiter    2017-10-06, 22:17:40    0°00'00"
          

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