January 13 - The coastal city of Léogâne is the epicenter of a catastrophic 7.0 earthquake in Haiti that kills more than 200,000 people and leaves more than a million others homeless.

February 27 - A magnitude 8.8 earthquake centered off the coast of Chile shortens the Earth's day by 1.26 milliseconds, shifts the Earth's axis by a few milliarcseconds and moves the entire city of Concepción 10 feet west.

April 4 - A magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes Baja California, killing only a few but sending tremors perceptible to people hundreds of miles away in every direction.

April 14 - At least 300 400 already are reported dead from a 7.1 temblor that rocks the remote Qinghai province of western China.

In all of 2009, according to the National Earthquake Information Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, 1787 people were killed worldwide by earthquakes. Judging by the first three and a half months of 2010, the worldwide death toll from earthquakes this year is on pace to nearly triple the rate of 2009--and that's after subtracting out the horrific carnage of Haiti from the mix.

In my humble, unscientific opinion, the globe's plate tectonic network became unhinged at or just months before the Haiti event, triggering a wave of magnitude 7+ earthquakes cascading through the earth's crust along a generally east to west line. The plates are re-adjusting themselves around the planet and may also (more recently) be following the Pacific "ring of fire," meaning Alaska and California could be next. Personally, I would lay odds on one or both by mid-summer. Disclosure: Nonetheless, I have scheduled a trip to visit a friend in the Inland Empire region of California in late June.

For more information, see wikipedia's list of 2010 earthquakes vs the 2009 list, both drawn from the NEIC database.