North Queensland Earthquake.

This afternoon I was happily catching up with a mate from Townsville who is down for the week. In the midst of it I received a text from another friend in Townsville saying there was an earthquake. I immediately thought the worst and pretty soon my conversation with my townsvillian comrade was tainted with worry.

AS it turns out the earthquake was nothing. The epicenter was not Townsville, it was some random patch of dirt between Ayr and Bowen. So while Townsville certainly felt a few tremors, no damage was done apart from perhaps farmer Fred's cowshed collapsing.

It still unnerves me slightly and arouses my curiosity. For starters there is the remarkable frequency of Earthquakes of late. First there was Christchurch, then Japan and now an earthquake in Queensland. Are they linked somehow? Are the tectonic plates under more stress than usual of late or is this a divine sign that the Last Days are upon us?

I personally doubt it. Nevertheless something is fishy. New Zealand and Japan are on the ring of fire so their respective earthquakes are not so out of the norm. The north Queensland earthquake hit the middle of a continental plate. Such earthquakes are rare unless there is a volcano near but there is no volcanic activity in Australia. Tectonically, Australia is a dead. Or was...