Strange earthquakes in Texas, Ohio, and elsewhere... who's to blame?

Welp, here we are again - more earthquakes in regions that don't typically experience them. A "rare" 4.0 earthquake hit South Texas on Saturday, April 24. The area, it seems,

does not experience these types of quakes.

The depth of this quake was around 5.0km, which suggests it was either geological or induced by oil production, which does happen. Never-the-less this is an interesting area to have a quake due to the fact the area has a large crack running north to south in Texas, discovered several years ago, origin being unknown.

Meanwhile, a smaller quake rattled Northeast Ohio the same weekend.While Ohio has seen a few small earthquakes before, "it's not clear what causes them."

Why the quakes in strange places? Some scientists have speculated, as we have reported before, that the Haiti earthquake in January forewarned increased seismic activity in the Americas. An Iranian cleric, though, offers an alternative explanation:

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair. "What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon last week. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes." Seismologists have warned for at least two decades that it is likely the sprawling capital will be struck by a catastrophic quake in the near future. Some experts have even suggested Iran should move its capital to a less seismically active location. Tehran straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 50 miles long, though it has not suffered a major quake since 1830.

There probably are more "immodest" women in Ohio and Texas, to be sure, but I can't help but feel that this explanation leaves something to be desired.