"I Feet the Earth Move Under My Feet"- Carole King

Ten days ago, on November 14, a pretty big earthquake struck Northern Argentina. Thankfully, it occurred in an unoccupied area. Although quite large at magnitude 6.1, there were no injuries or property damage. There being no bloody gore or human misery at which to gawk, the story quickly dropped out of the news.

Earthquakes happen to relieve pressure along the major seismic plates circling the earth. They're actually pretty common. The location and size of this one got me thinking.

It happened at the lower end of the plate that snakes up the west coast of South America, continues through Central America and North America to Alaska. If quake follows quake, as usually happens, eventually there could be some pretty big ones on the West Coast of the U.S.

Of course, pressure has to build up first. Depending how fast it does, we could be looking at quakes from California to Alaska by December, 2012.

Maybe those Mayan guys were on to something after all.