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here’s an article in the this morning’s Montreal Gazette that advances the discussion : http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Climate+change+quakes+link/4447200/story.html
there has been a dramatic surge in tectonic activity, including major earthquakes, since 1970, which is maybe not uncoincidentally the same time that the current ongoing surge in world temperatures– the famous “hockeystick” begins to happen. There might be a connection through human emissions contributing to the global warming that is melting the polar ice, which is causing the land under the ice to rise, which could be reawakening tectonic forces that have been dormant since the last meltdown of the polar ice ten thousand years ago. Another way that their may be a human hand in the increasing restiveness of the earth’s crust is that rifts, where two plates meet and grind against each other, causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain-building, are being filled with water from dams that are impounding their rivers. The water is widening the fault lines of the rift, and lubricating the plates, more molten matter is seeping up, more rending and shifting and slumping of the earth’s surface is happening, the terra firme is becoming infirme.