While this was originally reported by IncGamers four days ago after seeing a WoW-Europe forum thread, there weren't yet enough reports of this to really justify a followup news post. However, today WoW.com also posted on it, and there's a WoW-NA forum thread backing up the previous thread. It looks like patch 3.3 started the Cataclysm pre-launch event, though for now it's only minor earthquakes... but who knows where it will go from here.
With Kalgan mentioning a possible post-3.3 but pre-Cataclysm raid, it could tie in to the world event similar to how Tenris Mirkblood popped up in Karazhan during the Wrath of the Lich King pre-launch event. It's certainly interesting to see the event starting this early, no matter what the magnitude of in-game activities surrounding it, since Cataclysm's alpha hasn't even started yet. But it could be that, after Blizzard was happy with Wrath's pre-launch, they wanted to make something epic and memorable, but also accessible for a longer period of time, and thus have planned it out to run for quite a while.
For those curious, the earthquakes are being triggered by [DND] Shaker and [DND] Shaker - Small. Regardless of where it goes from here, it should be a fun ride leading up to Cataclysm's launch -- and hopefully and eventful one. What would you like to see take place in the pre-launch event aside from earthquakes? How about something like last year's zombie plague, but more themed toward's Deathwing's doings rather than the Scourge and undead?