I do have a question though. Now, don't laugh, but I am wondering if solar activity and flares have any relationship to earthquakes. People report earthquake lights or auroras preceeding major quakes. Do these auroras have anything to do with a reduction in the earth's magnetic field and suceptibility to solar flares?

Here are some assorted explanations for earthquake lights:

Earthquake lights are caused by an unknown mechanism. There are numerous theories as to how and why they occur.

One explanation involves intense electric fields created piezoelectrically by tectonic movements of rocks containing quartz.^[8]

Another possible explanation is local disruption of the Earth's magnetic field and/or ionosphere in the region of tectonic stress, resulting in the observed glow effects either from ionospheric radiative recombination at lower altitudes and greater atmospheric pressure or as aurora. However, the effect is clearly not pronounced or notably observed at all earthquake events and is yet to be directly experimentally verified.^[9]

There is also debate in the scientific community regarding radon as a possible precursor to some earthquakes,^[10] so another theory is that glowing clouds might be light emission produced by ionization or plasma-chemical reactions^[11]

^{These were taken from Wikipedia, but can also be found on other sites.}