Mw 7.1 South Sandwich Islands Region

On 11 December 2018 a major earthquake occurred in the South Sandwich Islands Region at a depth of 150 km. The seismic event occurred at 02:26:30 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 7.1.

The earthquake occurred with the first lunar peak that followed on a convergence of two alignments on 7 December, when Earth aligned with Mars and Neptune, and Venus aligned with the Sun and Saturn. In addition to the lunar peak, the Moon aligned with Saturn about two days before the earthquake.

Earth-Mars-Neptune        2018-12-07, 14:05:50  343°28'49"
Venus-Sun-Saturn          2018-12-07, 15:19:41  280°30'00"
Sun-Mars-Uranus           2018-12-13, 20:16:27   30°50'53"

Earth-Moon-Mercury        2018-12-05, 21:17:25  237°05'57"
Earth-Moon-Jupiter        2018-12-06, 13:55:43  245°59'14"
Earth-Moon-Sun            2018-12-07,  6:43:07  254°50'33"
Earth-Moon-Saturn         2018-12-09,  4:35:52  278°28'24"
          

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