Mw 7.2 Oaxaca, Mexico

On 16 February 2018 a major earthquake occurred in Oaxaca, Mexico at a depth of 15 km. The seismic event occurred at 23:39:40 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 7.2.

Four days before the earthquake, the Sun-Venus-Neptune alignment occurred. It was the second alignment with Venus and Neptune in three weeks — without additional critical planetary geometry — that caused a major earthquake, and both times it took 3-4 days for the seismic response to take place. Important lessons can be learned from these observations. Lunar geometry was relatively high at the time of the earthquake (index 13), partially due to the conjunction with the Sun (New Moon). Note that the Moon also lined up with Venus hours before the earthquake.

Sun-Venus-Neptune         2018-02-12, 22:41:54  343°34'16"
Mercury-Sun-Earth         2018-02-17, 12:11:43  148°31'54"

Earth-Moon-Sun            2018-02-15, 20:37:12  326°51'59"
Earth-Moon-Venus          2018-02-16, 16:09:48  336°54'06"
          

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