For you graph-geeks

I know I talked about the earthquake (and subsequent aftershocks) on Sunday, but I think that it's severity (and quite frankly, it's "close to home" nature for my family) warrant another post. This week's Wordless Wednesday is devoted to the ongoing seismic activity in Japan.  This picture is a screenshot from the U.S. Geological Survey taken at midnight, eastern time, last night.  Each square represents an earthquake; the size of the square represents the size of the quake.  Most are in the 4.0-5.9 range, though 6.0+ earthquakes (technically aftershocks) do still happen.  On the map, earthquakes the occurred in the last hour (11:00 p.m. Tuesday through midnight Wednesday) would be red; earthquakes in the last 24 hours are blue; earthquakes in the last week are yellow.  I get really excited when there are no red squares, but total, there have been almost 500 earthquakes large enough to be counted on this map (there are about a dozen more just north of where this one cuts off) in the last week.  See that medium sized blue square just west of Tokyo?  Yeah, my sister-in-law was not pleased with that one.  As the first quake really close to where they live, she (and the rest of the family) felt the full 6.2 power of it, unlike the larger, but farther away, 9.0 quake last week.

How can you help?  Visit the American Red Cross website and donate to their Japan Earthquake efforts.  It's that easy.  And, if it's your thing, keep praying.  Thanks.

Oh, and I know this is a much wordier Wordless Wednesday than usual.  It just seemed like a really good picture to post, and I figure you'll forgive me.