A magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck offshore Maule, Chile, on Feb. 27, killing at least 711 people and displacing 2 million people. Why was the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti in January more deadly? Geological differences as well as social factors are both part of the explanation.

When natural disasters strike major cities, such as the Haiti earthquake and 2005's Hurricane Katrina, scientists debate whether to rebuild or relocate the city. Relocating may be the best bet for Port-au-Prince, says EARTH commenter and Columbia Earth Institute geophysicist John Mutter. But in other cases, such as New Orleans, we should rebuild.

Scientists familiar with the geology of Hispaniola, the island that includes Haiti and Dominican Republic, have warned for years the region was overdue for a major quake. And, they say, it's likely that the quakes are not over.

The largest measured earthquake ever to strike Haiti rocked the heavily populated island nation Tuesday.

Earthquakes occurring on different sides of the world devastated Tajikistan and the Solomon Islands Monday.

Love it or hate it, Twitter has its uses. USGS is taking advantage of the social networking site's real-time information transfer, turning barrages of tweets posted during an earthquake event into citizen science.

When it comes to natural hazards, the big issue is not in their prediction, but in mitigation — in preventing an ensuing catastrophe, such as the devastation that followed 2005's Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami. That's where geoscientists can truly help society reduce risk, argues EARTH contributor Mary Lou Zoback in this comment.

In the aftermath of disasters, geoscientists have an important task: helping emergency responders, public health specialists and others to understand the potential health and environmental implications of the disaster.

On the heels of the earthquake that struck Samoa Tuesday, a strong earthquake rocked Indonesia's westernmost island, Sumatra, on Wednesday.

A magnitude-8.0 earthquake rocked the Samoa region early on Tuesday morning, spawning a tsunami that left more than a hundred people dead in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.

A magnitude-7.0 earthquake rocked West Java, Indonesia, on Wednesday, killing at least 30 people.

Seismometers on the moon, placed there by Apollo astronauts, recorded hundreds of "moonquakes" from 1969 to 1977 — even though the moon was thought to be seismically dead. But moonquakes, it turns out, may have more in common with earthquakes than once thought.

One August night fifty years ago, campers visiting Montana's Hebgen Lake suddenly found themselves in the middle of a dark nightmare: The most powerful earthquake ever to strike the state was rupturing the side of a nearby mountain. The resulting landslide killed 28 people and left deep scars in the survivors.

In the first half of August, several earthquakes and two typhoons have already struck Asia.

No damages or serious injuries have yet been reported following the magnitude-7.6 quake.