Mw 7.1 Southeast of Loyalty Islands

On 29 August 2018 a major earthquake occurred Southeast of Loyalty Islands at a depth of 20 km. The seismic event occurred at 03:51:56 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 7.1.

From the 25th to the 30th three planetary alignments occurred, most notably Sun-Mercury-Uranus and Mercury-Venus-Saturn while the Moon opposed the Sun (Full Moon) on the 26th. Note that the Mercury-Venus-Saturn alignment on the 27th converged with a lunar peak that reached index 12.

Sun-Mercury-Uranus        2018-08-25, 12:45:25   29°38'41"
Mercury-Venus-Saturn      2018-08-27,  8:10:28  275°55'20"
Mercury-Sun-Jupiter       2018-08-30,  3:03:30  236°49'35"

Moon-Earth-Sun            2018-08-26, 11:20:18  152°55'47"
Earth-Moon-Neptune        2018-08-27, 11:29:03  345°07'34"
Moon-Earth-Venus          2018-08-30, 10:17:30  201°55'41"

Earth:   Moon-Neptune     2018-08-27, 11:29:03    0°00'00"
Earth:   Moon-Uranus      2018-08-27, 15:26:30   45°00'00"
          

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