An Experiment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction

reply to post by JustMike

Psst Mike...

Authorities say a foul odor that spurred calls to fire departments throughout the city on Sunday is possibly the result of the large release of methane in the Santa Monica Bay.

Coastal Stench May By Byproduct Of Large Release Of Methane
Dolphins leaving, methane escaping....

Unsure if this means anything but sea lion pups starving.

The phenomenon has been happening for two weeks along beaches in Los Angeles and Orange counties. On Monday, the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach declared its own state of emergency after it performed 12 rescues Saturday – a single-day record for the organization.

Unsure why this is happening. Are they starving due to lack of food? Where are their parents?
Starving Sea Lion Pups Stump Scientists

reply to post by AuntB

Apologies for my delay in replying, AuntB. That's some very interesting information. I have no idea how often these natural methane releases get reported in that region, but unless it's a fairly common event it would be worth following up to see if there is any correlation between such events and any significant regional seismic activity.

As for the sea lion pups, that is very strange indeed. As sea lions are mammals and suckle their young, it suggests several scenarios, none of which are good.

First, let's consider the adult female sea lions: the mothers may not be able to find sufficient food to produce the milk -- which sounds strange as dolphins have a similar diet and they were (apparently) finding plenty -- or something has upset the mothers so they can't produce it, or (worse still) something has disturbed these animals so much that the mothers have perhaps abandoned the pups and maybe even left the immediate area.

However, the problem may be with the pups themselves. As we know, the young of higher animals (including fairly intelligent vertebrates like sea lions) rarely stray far from their mothers. Generaly, they stay close to them both to feed and for protection. But the reports don't mention adult sea lions along the beaches, whether healthy or otherwise. Only pups. So is there something wrong with these pups?

I'm wondering about any link between the methane gas release and these starving pups. Technically, methane is not toxic in itself, but large amounts of it being released through the sea water might be harmful to animals, even air-breathers like sea lions. This is because methane can displace oxygen in air and reduce its levels to a point where air-breathing animals (and people) can suffer ill effects from lack of sufficient oxygen. And as the young often are more sensitive to such things, it could affect them more. So, I see that as a possible reason for this strange event with the pups.

In fact, if the lower oxygen levels made the mothers feel sick -- even if only for a day or so -- then that would limit their ability to nurse their young, especially if the pups also feel sick.

Any woman who has ever tried nursing a sick baby will understand this, especially if you were also feeling sick at the time!

Whatever is going on, such events can be viewed as either (a) coincidental and unconnnected or (b ) possibly inter-related. Consider that there have been three sea-based events in the one region inside a month: -
-- a mega-pod of 100,000 dolphins, the likes of which has never been reported before anywhere as far as I know;
-- a release of natural methane in Monterey Bay, that even bothered residents some miles from the coast;
-- starving sea lion pups appearing in unusually high numbers along the same coast.

I find it hard to accept that these are in no way interconnected and therefore I feel it would be good to keep an eye on that region for any other reports of unusual sea-based events.

Well, no eq on the 13th, but the Pope was elected on the day I knew he would.

However, my ears have been ringing since the "White Smoke" came out for Pope Francis.

Ringing hard, often, and long duration.

I did say +/- two days from when he was elected, so I have until tomorrow to see what happens.

I 100% believe in all of our abilities to feel eq's coming. But I only give about a 20% belief to dream prophecies. This belief about an eq involving the time of the election of the Pope came from a dream I recently had, nothing more. So like I said, we'll see.

But with my ears ringing, and animals acting weird, and the sun perking up again, and a number of other things, I believe this will happen.

The only other part of that dream I will share is this, that this is the last Pope.

Peace

Originally posted by lasertaglover
No ear ringing, no symptoms here, solar activity is super low, shadow activity has greatly increased....but it's been a while since a biggie, and its march now, which historically has had some very big ones.

Something coming soon, maybe this weekend or early next week. Pure prediction here, not my usual earth empathy. Maybe around the 13th?

13 has been popping up all around me. As has thoughts of Italy or Greece.

And for no reason whatsoever ever except a hunch...if one doesn't happen by the 13th, I personally believe a big one will happen +/- 2 days of the new Pope being elected.

Peace and love to all of you my friends

I haven't had any kind of muted hearing since the last one, but today I certainly feel like the energy has been sucked out of me, like I'm a spent battery. Everything is a monumental effort this morning in regards to staying awake & getting things done. I do have CFS/ME, so I'm well aware that this is very likely just a fatigue episode, but it's a bad one and is making me wonder a little. Even formulating my thoughts into a post is a lengthy effort today

I must concur on the feeling drained bit. Today has been quite taxing and I have felt uneasy. Cats been acting a little strange too. It even seems that the batteries in my iPhone and iPad have been inexplicably drained the past two days or so. I can swear that I'm hearing this low low low background rumble. Right now my nerves are just all over the place. Jumpy and I can't seem to settle in to do any task. Just hypervigilant. There are moments where I feel okay but then it comes back.

I also just recall that last night I had an episode of vertigo but I was moving around that time not sitting still and I estimate it was around midnight Eastern

Wow that's weird there was a 4.5 in Canada a little over 30 minutes ago, And I was just thinking to myself whatever's going to happen I wish it would just happen already because I feel awful. And I noticed about five minutes ago that I was feeling a little better and more relaxed and the cats a little more at ease. So I decided to check the quake map and there it was.

reply to post by rbkruspe


For what it's worth, I noticed the Masset 4's earlier tonight (4 in the past 3 hours) and my skin has been crawling every time I think of them. I know it's not out of the norm for aftershocks to last years, but it's been pretty quiet up there hasn't it?

I'm with the rest of you guys, today I was unusually down, spent the day sulking in bed and refreshing FE. Feeling uneasy over this talk of California, and the PNW. I still feel like its so close, just hanging over our heads.

Hmm. Three days ago back on the previous page in this thread, I mentioned that I was expecting a high mag 6 range quake in the PNW within about 3 days. Then, in the early hours of today (UTC; March 14 local time PNW), there was that series of four mid-range magnitude 4 quakes Sth of Masset, all within the space of 2 1/2 hours.

I'd just like to comment on a couple of aspects of these events. First, they don't greatly surprise me as they occurred in a region that saw a mag 7.7 back on Oct 28 last year, and they fit the criteria for aftershocks of that event. True, it's been quiet up there for a little while now, but aftershocks can come along spasmodically and even months or years after a main shock. So, while I wasn't specifically predicting a bunch of smaller aftershocks to happen along in that region within the time frame I gave (and the odds of pulling off such a prediction would be rather slim anyway), it didn't raise my eyebrows much to see them on the map today.

The point is, I've been expecting some pretty major activity in that region around now. However -- and this is very important -- even if we add together the energy released by these four quakes, the total doesn't even come close to that of a single mag 6 event. In fact, it would barely equal a mag 5.

In short, those four mid-mag-four quakes just don't qualify as major activity. So, I'm only taking them as another indicator that something larger may be due very shortly -- and I mean about two magnitudes larger.

But there are two provisos here: firstly, to reiterate what I said the other day, if there is a larger event in the mid- to upper-mag-six range or bigger, it doesn't have to mean it will cause any real harm. I'm not trying to predict doom and gloom, just a possible, rather strong quake event -- very likely offshore from the mainland. Nothing esoteric about the location, though. That's just where the main faults are.

Secondly, if there is a larger event in the immediate future (days, not weeks), it does not have to occur in that same location. It could well be hundreds of km/miles NW/NNW or SE/SSE from there. (The same general fault system seems likely to me.) To be honest, it seems to me that with the amount of energy already released in that area (Masset and also NNE from it), a strong event looks more likely SSE from there than to the NW/NNW.

My prediction (from March 12) was for the PNW region only. Just want that to be clear. If things hold and no mag 6-range quake occurs in the PNW within a few days or so at the outside, I'll be happy enough. I got some indicators and that's what I mostly go by anyway. But we'll see. I still feel it's (metaphorically) on the cards.

However:

All of the above is completely separate from my concerns for the Central to Sth Cal coastal region and down into the Nth Mexico coastal region. I feel that something is going on down there and has been building up for a considerable time, and that the recent unusual behaviour by some marine-based animals is indicative of that, as is the reported (and quite significant) methane release in Monterey Bay.

While many of us are antsy about SoCal, I honestly have no idea of what might happen there or when. Only that I feel it will be initiated off-coast rather than on land.

Problem: the known, major faults down that way are mainly onshore. Not a lot is supposed to happen down off SoCal. Sure, over in the Gulf of California (Mexico), it's a different story. They can get some big events there and all the way to where the San Andreas starts winding its way up through Cal. But there are some offshore faults in the SoCal region and in the past they may have been responsible for some pretty big events, including undersea landslips.

That's what I'm wondering about. If a large mass of land on the sea bed has been disturbed, even by quakes that would barely register on land, that could lead to large releases of methane.

Antsy...energized.....
HUNGRY, last night & tonight!
Both cats wanting attention earlier.
Young cat wanting it again now.

I was surprised when I woke up today & there were none.
Usually when I'm hungry, there's one within 12 hours.
Usually about that long for the cats too.

Hubby feels something, but can't pin it down to how soon.
He has to only pay attention to the symptoms from the neck down,
since he's not completely over the inner ear infection yet!
WOQ

Finally just got home from work, TGIF...especially cause I totally relate to you all, just wickedly drained. Lethargic, but also nervous.

I am glad my dream was off, but I am still having ear ringing, fairly constant. But not overly loud.

Romania is kind of odd to have a quake, isn't it?

And Mike, I agree with Southern Cal. I don't throw out locations often, but I think something is about to pop there also. I saw L.A. just had a few small ones. Got a lot of friends there. A little worried about them.

Antsy, definite pressure building.

Peace to you all

reply to post by lasertaglover

Hi Laser,

re your query/comment about the quake in Romania. They're not exactly an everyday event there, but the region is quite seismically active and they've had some very strong quakes in the past, some of them well up in the mag 7 (Mw) range. Today's quake (UTC time) is listed on EMSC as a mag 3.8 (ML), so nothing to worry about compared to what they've known even in fairly recent history.

(Note: that link will probably go dead within about a week, but if anyone wants to check the listings later they can go to the EMSC Home Page which includes updated listings and also a current quake map.)

If you follow the EMSC link in my first paragraph then click on "Maps", then on the new page click on "Seismicity" you'll see how active the region has been over the years. Also, on the Wiki, there's quite a good summary of Romania's larger quake events during the past 500 years or so, along with a list of the more notable quakes in the 21st century -- the largest being a mag 6.0 Mw on Oct 27, 2004.

Okay, back to SoCal. We all know that sooner or later, there'll be another "big one" down that way related to the San Andreas fault system. Many Americans, especially in that region, call it "The Big One", probably because they are ignorant of the fact that Cascadia's fault system is capable of a quake at least a full magnitude bigger. I expect most of us here are well aware of that, but okay, for the Californians, the one they need to focus on is their own.

I mentioned yesterday that my own feeling is a major event could occur offshore. Or, as I put it, a major event could be initiated offshore. That is, while the common feeling or theory is that any big quake has to occur along the one of the land-based faults (or an interconnected section of them), I suspect that faults off the coast might also play a role. It's just that I'm puzzled by the faults that seem to start off along/near the SoCal coast and then fizzle out, leading me to think they may extend further Sth and possibly even join up with the "main" offshore fault somewhere below the Baja Peninsula.

In other words, I have a suspicion (nothing more!) that there could be a mini or micro plate down that way, but one which is not properly charted yet. If it exists, it would make sense to me that the Baja Peninsula might be part of it, with the majority of the (possible) plate below the sea.

This admittedly fragile hypothesis could help to explain why there was that rather odd mag 6.3 quake that occurred about 175 miles WSW of San Diego in the sea (ie west of the Nthn Baja Peninsula) on Dec 14 last year. It was the first significant quake in that area in some decades. Then, a couple of months later, we get that odd event with the dolphins off San Diego, and more recently the mystery with the sea lion pups. And just a little further north, the subsea methane release.

If not a mini plate, there could still be a fault that runs further S/SE but which has not been charted yet. It's quite possible, especially if it is generally not very active and sits quietly for long periods. For example, over in Athens (Greece), there was a serious earthquake in 1999, just 17 km from the city center (a tad over 10 miles). It killed 143 people -- their worst natural disaster in around 50 years -- and it occurred on a fault that the local scientists didn't even know existed! And that's in a region that has been constantly inhabited for thousands of years, and where quakes are quite common.

You'd think they'd know every fault in the region, but they didn't "discover" that one until it let go with a mag 6.0.

And that's a lesson for us all. Especially in a region that is known to be seismic we can never assume we know where all the dangerous faults are. That's why I'm not afraid to say that maybe, just maybe, there is more going on in the offshore SoCal region than we know about. It's also why I feel that offshore activity there could initiate other activity, meaning that a larger event on land doesn't have to start on land.

My ears have been ringing for hours, finally it's not quite as loud.
Don't remember it ever lasting this long before!

Hubby just almost went into a seizure for the second time today!

I'm on edge. But that may be because of hubby!
My arms are so weak from the Lyme flare-up, that I almost couldn't
massage his neck long enough, to keep him from going into it all the way!

Young cat is really trilling & wanting attention!
Old cat is hiding under the dining room table!

What the heck is going on???
Is it just us???
WOQ

Morning all..

Hope everyone is ok, and not too many rotten symptoms showing up. I'm just back from the US, still jet lagged to hell, but I thought I would post a few things.

I still havent got through all the posts here, but some interesting stuff popping up...like Romania. I nearly posted yesterday, but honestly was too exhausted, and I'm trying to work out what are jet lag effects and what aren't.

Firstly, my dreams have been insane since I got home here on Saturday morning. I don't usually dream so vividly, but this is like some descent into madness. Yesterday morning was the one that spooked me most. I had another earthquake and tsunami dream, the first for a long time really, and it was so clear.

I was standing on a beach front where many buildings had been built, some on piers out into the water. There was a long straight tarmac boulevard along the shore, and more buildings facing the water. They were nice buildings too, not cheaply built, so I felt very strongly I was looking at a wealthy country, more specifically an Asian one, perhaps Japanese. One of the buildings on a pier out over the water was a tv station, and this is where my focus centered. I was standing on the boulevard near this, when ripples and very tiny waves started to show up in the water lying in the gutter, like a line down the middle of the water flowing alongside the pavement, and in the next moment, the earthquake started. It wasn't very strong, but lasted a long time, and this is where is gets very strange. Suddenly, everyone was weightless and floating off the ground by maybe 3 or 4 feet. This lasted only a few moments, and then we were all told to hang on to the wooden barriers along the pier and boulevard as there was a wave coming. Sure enough it hit us, but wasn't big at all...hit us all at maybe hip height, and we remained on our feet, but very quickly there were another 4 or 5 waves behind it of the same magnitude. The tv station is interesting, as we were all very confused as to why they weren't reporting what was happening, like it was some sinister cover up and they didn't want anyone to know there was a quake.

So there...recorded for posterity, for what it's worth. I'm having some other really bad physical symptoms. IBS flare up, not the worst I've had, but close, and joint pain like I haven't had in about 5 months, especially in my elbows and ankles. That could all be down to a week of the wrong food and too much time on planes though.

Another thing I noticed watching the flight path on the plane where they have a google earth type world map, was that I found my attention caught almost exclusively by underwater landscapes, and continental shelves, like in the Gulf of Mexico, and offshore from the east coast of the US, like I expected them to move. I've felt for a long time, as you all know, that there will be a very strong water element in the next big one, perhaps starting offshore, and moving inland.

Will keep reading and catching up...hope you all ok.

Well let's see Sunday was absolute and utter...(a word I can't say but begins with an S and ends with a T) And I was trying to figure out just what was up because Saturday I felt pretty good I was productive no panic or anxiety. But the cat is driving me absolutely bonkers. Roaming constantly, not really sleeping, eating a ton, demanding attention In so many ways, mostly ones that annoy me. She's just been what seems irritable with her restlessness. Sniffing everything the ground, going from table to table and piece of furniture in the place.

I also for the first time in months saw outside cats. Hanging around the dumpsters tonight and they too were sniffing all over the ground. The same exact way mine does. There's gotta be something they know.

Also yesterday I did notice some strange bird behavior but it could be just mating season.

I just had an episode of muted hearing. It started about 3:18am US eastern, and lasted a full minute or so (I watched the computer clock) It stopped abruptly, and began again a few seconds later for 2 minutes or thereabouts. Anyone remember back in the day when a TV station used to go off-air in the wee AM hours, when it was either just static, or the color rows with the tone? The second episode of muted hearing turned into a tone like those color block off-air tones were. And it was LOUD. It's faded the past few minutes, but it's still there, and very annoying. I suppose you could call the tone "ringing".

If direction matters, I'm currently facing south, and the tone/ringing is in my left ear (facing east)

I live in Southern California, specifically, San Diego. Last night, my otherwise 100% quite, passive dog was looking out the window and growling all night long. She wanted to be let out something fierce and she ran and just barked at the sky. We do not have many neighbors, all the houses are 3 to 5 acres apart. We walked the field to see if there was an injured animal or something, and nothing. She kept this up for over 4 hours until we went to bed.

Our tom cat was also meowing non-stop and he never, ever meows (he's fixed).

I can say my animals have NEVER acted this way before. I kept telling my other half I think there is going to be an earthquake.

Memorializing in the event we do experience an earthquake in the next week or so.

reply to post by curiouswa


Animals know way more than we do...keep watching them, and also any other odd animal behavior. Worried about your area. Stay safe.

Peace

So I have not felt a thing in a day or two...nothing. At the same time, it has been almost eerily quiet regarding quakes. Calm before the storm?

Peace

I have a bad feeling about tonight Yesterday I saw a boatload of quake clouds coming from the west. Pictures too. And cat has been really weird and I'm for the first time in a really long time felt the floor vibrating and I can just sense energy out there tonight. Could be spring, it could be Friday night but I don't know I'm a keep an eye and a feel out.