A new study has revealed the moon's powerful influence on the Earth. Apparently high tides combined with full moons and new moons can cause a large earthquake.

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The tides rise and fall twice a day, and these are caused when the world's oceans are pulled apart by the gravitational forces of the moon.

However, during a full moon or a new moon, which typically happens twice every month, tides become higher than usual since the moon, Earth, and the sun are all lined up together. Scientists call this phenomenon the "spring tides."

This new study found that big earthquakes usually occur when a larger amount of tidal water pushes down with great force on geological fault lines on the Earth's crust. Scientists have already theorized about the effect of the weight of oceans on fault lines. However, this is the first study to present clear evidence of this.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo claim that the probability of tiny rock failure increases as it expands into a gigantic rupture due to increasing tidal stress.

Scientists still cannot predict how large these earthquakes would be, however, the chances are increasing as this type of stress levels grow in a cascading manner and as tiny fractures develop into a large-scale one.

This would suggest that the chance of a small fracture cascading and transforming into large earthquakes are greater during "spring tides."

According to the lead author of the study, Satoshi Ide of the University of Tokyo, recent destructive earthquakes--like the 2004 Sumatra earthquake in Indonesia which killed 230,000 people, and the 2011 quake in Japan that killed 15,000--both happened during these high tides.

His team, along with co-authors of the study, Suguru Yabe and Yoshiyuki Tanaka from the University of Tokyo, have determined that nine out of 12 of the largest earthquakes on record occurred during days where there is a full moon or a new moon.

As far as smaller earthquakes are concerned, scientists cannot find a link between high tides and their chance of happening.

Researchers believe that these findings can help in predicting earthquakes especially in the regions of the world where countries are vulnerable to such violent seismic activity.

This new study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.