Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that the frequency of earthquakes more than doubled this year.

Published in the Journal Geophysical Research Letters, a recent study revealed that earthquakes recorded during the first quarter of 2014 more than doubled when compared to the average number recorded since 1979.

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"We have recently experienced a period that has had one of the highest rates of great earthquakes ever recorded," said Tom Parsons, a USGS geophysicist in Menlo Park, California.

Since 1979, the average rate of significant quakes has been 10 per year which rose to 12.5 in 1992, then jumped to 16.7 in 2010. This gradual increase accelerated in the first three months of 2014, according to the study.

However, Parsons and co-author Eric Geist, another USGS researcher, clarified that even if the global shock rate is rising, the number of recently recorded quakes can still be explained by random chance.

A possibility of earthquakes having a domino-effect, whereas earthquakes can travel around the world and cause a chain of quakes everywhere have been the subject of an earlier geological study.

With this in mind, the USGS researchers have hoped that the current statistics of significant earthquakes this early in a year may be the actual thing happening-big shakers generating another large one all around the globe.

Parsons compared the rise in earthquake statistics to a flip of a coin that generate random results. At times, heads or tails will repeat several times in a row, even though the process is random.

Smaller earthquakes with less than magnitude six occur globally in the same domino-effect, the earlier study revealed. According to researchers, this implies that less powerful quakes are more likely to be influenced by others.

Parson explained that it is possible that global-level communications happen so infrequently that we have not seen enough to find it among the larger, rarer events.

USGS geologists are still waiting for more evidence from an earlier study. They said they are expecting shocks to become more frequent in years to come.

Tagsearthquake, USGS, geologists, 2014