Something’s off.A report describes simulations suggesting that the Sun and Moon’s weak tidal pull can nudge certain faults into slow earthquakes—events that release energy so gradually they are not felt at the surface.
The strange part is the scale mismatch: the modeled stresses are comparable to a gentle hand press, yet the researchers say a fault can respond strongly when the timing matches its natural response timescale, like a swing pushed at the right rhythm. Depending on a fault’s frictional behavior and the tide’s timing and strength, the model produced slow slip and, in some cases, faster slip.
The work modeled one patch of a fault zone in isolation. It is presented as a framework for interpreting tidal patterns in slow earthquakes, not as a demonstrated method for predicting earthquakes.
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