An Experiment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction

reply to post by space cadet


Space, Char was up at 2:00 a.m. as well, because I received email from her. I don't know how she manages to go to work every morning-- she rarely sleeps.

Very observant of you to notice the SoCal precursors-- clumsy is a big one. But it can also be for other areas... like Central California. Your headache sounds more like Wasatch/New Madrid though. I think this is one of those confusing days.

The buttocks must be South America, and as I mentioned, I am still waiting on Chile. I believe in the 1960's Chile had a 9.5. I met a woman from Chile the week after our 4.9 and she said she didn't even get out of bed, went right back to sleep. No doubt. Talk about an EQ veteran.

You and damntheptb can discuss ear tones, because I don't get them. Yet. He and I were guessing that his precursors were for the Washington Puget Sound EQ, especially the "water sound" in his ears, but he's not quite sure yet. We need to get the exact same precursor for the same region a couple, three times before it gets logged.

As for me, I'm getting left side kidney area pains, some pinching type pains in the heart area, pressure on the right side of my head behind the ear, and the left ear aches a bit, so we're talking both ears, a little lower back ache, my left elbow still hurts (but I'm not sure about that one since I've been doing a lot of digging in my yard) and I had heartburn last night, which I rarely get. I don't know which region the heartburn correlates to yet, if any, we're working on that. I also have some stiffness in my lower neck and left shoulder-- also could be from the digging. And the slightest ache in my right hip joint. A lot of precursors today, let's see if I can make some sense of them. Damntheptb, we need your help... what regions do you think we're getting, based on precursors you may be getting?

We could be getting the Phillipines... they've been shaking, or Washington state >5.0. I may still be getting NorCal, more specifically the south SF bay, San Jose to Santa Cruz, including the Loma Prieta fault. I hope not. What do you think about south bay, damntheptb? I think I have to get quiet and focus, then come back and post later. Too much going on right now.

Oh, there was an EQ in Argentina... could've been the rage crimes.

Magnitude 4.9 - JUJUY, ARGENTINA
2008 August 01 06:18:39 UTC

reply to post by yankeerose


Thanks for the post, yankeerose. I've never read this particular website, Project Camelot, but I notice on her website, that Merriam Delicado has a new book out. I always take things like this with a grain of salt. Mostly, it's because I feel very secure in saying if there was going to be an EQ >7.0 on the west coast of the United States, Charlotte would issue an EQ alert email. I'll mention this prediction to her and see what she has to say about it. Plus, I feel fairly certain that if an EQ of such magnitude was only two days away, I'd be feeling some pretty intense precursors myself. Time will tell.

I still need to get quiet and focused to post my precursors; there's a lot going on today, a lot to decipher. The phone keeps ringing, etc.

reply to post by yankeerose

Hi Yankeerose and thank you very much for posting that prediction info. I hope you don't mind if I make some comments on it.

For those who may have arrived on this thread only recently (and welcome to you!), a little explanation could be helpful. There are many places on the web that offer earthquake predictions. Some do more-or-less what we do here (but it seems generally without so much follow-up), while others are rather absurd, posting huge numbers of predictions for quakes that cover just about all seismically active regions of the world on an almost weekly basis, often with little or no specificity as to time frame or magnitude. That is not prediction at all, any more than predicting rain in around 50-plus known "rainy" locations around the world each week. Of course you will get some hits but they are meaningless. To be reasonably valid, predictions need to state locations, give a reasonable time frame or at least only hold valid for a reasonable time (say a week or two at the most, usually), and either state a range of magnitude or automatically exclude quakes below a certain magnitude.

The general approach here is that for an area with quite intense seismic activity, like Indonesia for example, we do not claim a "hit" for a quake that is (by that region's standards) quite mild. Indonesia gets many sub-5 mag quakes, and even those in the low 5 range occur a few times every week on average. So any predictions for such regions take this into account. On the other hand, places like the US West Coast see very few quakes over a mag 5, so it is reasonable to claim hits for quakes below that range. Here, though, we tend to be more specific as to location. The smaller the expected quake, the more specific its location. That's about the way it usually works. Even so, while we might report very small quakes in the 1 or 2 mag range, they aren't claimed as hits unless they occur in very unusual places and were predicted to occur.

Another point is that this thread was not established by Kattraxx and Damntheptb as a "prophet of doom" kind of thing. It was set up to consider and evaluate various methods of prediction, exchange ideas and keep tabs on results. We will not find the best methods or even learn very much by only making predictions for massive, "killer" quakes or volcanic activity. They are thankfully quite rare and the number of such predictive posts, if valid, would not run more than a couple of pages. Instead, it is the ongoing and developing process of trying to improve prediction methods for a wide range of seismic events that is the key. This also means that while we take note of "hits", we also consider what we can learn from "misses".

Very few other sites I have visited seem to have much interest in discussing or reviewing their "misses". They just ignore them. This is unscientific and does not make for reasonable and ongoing research. It also suggests a certain level of denial on the part of those who run such sites.

Now moving on to Miriam's prediction, it can be evaluated with no difficulty. The time frame is quite specific and narrow, she defines a reasonable geographical region, and she gives an expected minimum magnitude.

What's the chances of her being right?

Statistically, there are globally around a dozen mag 7-plus quakes every year (give or take a couple). Her time frame is only around three days, which is 1/10 of a month. If I've worked this out right, then, the odds of there being a mag 7-plus anywhere in the world within her stated period are about 10%. In other words, if you were to predict that a mag 7-plus quake will occur anywhere in the world within a stated three-day period -- but with no specific location stated -- you'd get a "hit" about one time out of ten. Those are not great odds and if you were to do it purely on a random basis then you'd look pretty woeful.

But that's not the end of it. The odds of such a quake being within her defined geographical region are clearly far less; there are at least ten locations I can think of around the world where on the basis of historical data, a mag 7 would not be totally out of the ordinary or at least is a physical possibility. Some of those regions are far more seismically active than the stated region, and hence more likely to have a major quake. Just working on rough figures, though, I'd say the odds of accurately predicting a 7-plus quake in that stated region within that time frame are not much better than 1%. Yep, if you predict a mag 7-plus quake for a specific region in such a narrow time frame, you'll probably be right about once in a hundred times. If you choose a very active region you might get that down to one in fifty.

My own feeling tends towards her being very close with this prediction; I have a level of concern about the stated region and those who've followed this thread for any length of time will understand what I mean when I use the word "concern". While I do not, however, see indications of a 7-plus by August 3 in the stated region, something in the high-six range may be on the cards yet it could occur slightly outside the stated time frame. I'd go for something by the end of August 5. (Local time zone, just to be clear.) I'd guess the odds of my being right would be around 16% or so, as mag 6-range quakes are about ten times more likely than mag 7 ones and I've extended the time period by two days. In any case I'm only giving my opinion and it will not trouble me at all if I'm wrong. It's all data.

Some readers might see little difference between a high-six (say a 6.5 to 6.8) and a mag 7-plus, but in terms of the amount of energy released the difference is quite enough to be of significance.

Mike.

Today being what it is, too many distractions and precursors to sort out, I'm just going to focus on North America here and say I'm watching NorCal and SoCal into Mexico, for now.

Edit to add: S. America into the mix.... thinking Chile still, but also Bolivia and Peru and Argentina.

[edit on 8/1/08 by kattraxx]

More offshore NorCal--- if you look at the map of the Juan de Fuca and Mendocino fracture zone, etc., you can see that the offshore Oregon and offshore California are probably all connected. This is a dangerous area and we've been watching it closely on this thread.

Magnitude 3.5 - OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
2008 August 01 02:30:08 UTC

I have to say that just looking at a map of the offshore Oregon and California fault systems bothers me.

Many of the Oregon offshore EQ's from a week ago have fallen off the map now...

external image

And I took these shots of some odd clouds in our skies last night.

external image
Notice the frayed edges...

external image
These two are just weird.

external image

Thank you for the replies. I did not know where to post that prediction... only that I knew it was rare for Project Camelot to be involved. I am troubled because I have a brother in SoCal, and I badly want to email him and tell him to get outta there... but I don't want him to think I'm a goof either... lol I guess people that live out there get this stuff all the time, and obviously feel the risk is worth the location. Thank you for allowing my post, and not attacking me for it.

My I please ask a question? My 17 year old son is never sick, but yesterday he woke with a severe headache on the top of his head, photosensitivity, lower back pain, very hot to the touch area around his upper back and neck, tingling in fingertips. Medically I sent him to the Dr., no real diagnosis but they put him on antibiotics. I am wondering if his symptoms could somehow be related to what you guys are talking about here? Do his areas of conflict mean anything to you?

Thank you in advance for any consideration you may give to my inquiry.

reply to post by yankeerose


Yankeerose, you're welcome to post here.

Some of those symptoms your son has could be precursors. There have been a few people mentioning the lower back and the top of the headache. I have both right now, actually more shoulder and neck stiffness, but some lower back. He's only 17, so the lower back seems out of the ordinary for someone so young and without prior injury.

Good for you, for thinking outside the box, about your son's condition. If I were you, I'd email Charlotte King at [email protected] and ask her about it. She always answers all her mail promptly and welcomes questions.

As far as the +7.0 SoCal prediction, I'm still a novice at this, but if anything that big was only a couple days away, I'm pretty sure I'd be feeling it strongly already. At this moment, I don't have any of the main precursor pain for SoCal-- none. And I know Char certainly would issue an email alert to her subscribers, if she did. Maybe you'd feel better subscribing to her free earthquake alerts, since your brother lives down there. Just email her and ask to be put on her list. Couldn't hurt.

[edit on 8/2/08 by kattraxx]

Originally posted by yankeerose
Thank you for allowing my post, and not attacking me for it.

My I please ask a question? My 17 year old son is never sick, but yesterday he woke with a severe headache on the top of his head, photosensitivity, lower back pain, very hot to the touch area around his upper back and neck, tingling in fingertips. Medically I sent him to the Dr., no real diagnosis but they put him on antibiotics. I am wondering if his symptoms could somehow be related to what you guys are talking about here? Do his areas of conflict mean anything to you?

Thank you in advance for any consideration you may give to my inquiry.

Hello again Yankeerose,

your post was most welcome and highly relevant to the thread's main intent and I wish we had more contributors like yourself, so thank you again for posting.

About your son: while some of his symptoms might be related to the sort of pre-quake energy influences that we study (or at least speculate upon), it does concern me that the Dr placed him on antibiotics without having any definitive diagnosis. If he has an infection the ab's will only help if the infecting organism is bacterial and within the spectrum of that antibiotic's effectiveness. Otherwise they will not help a great deal and could simply harm his natural bacterial flora.

to keep this post relevant to the thread, we consider physical-symptom-based precursors to be those that do not appear to have any readily identifiable "normal" cause. If I get severe pain in my legs, for example, then I only take that as a possible precursor if there is no physical reason why they should feel that way. Your son's symptoms of fever, photo-sensitivity and specific region touch sensitivity are identical to something I had some years back, which did have a physical cause but one that at first was not suspected by my doctor. So, I am sending you a U2U with more information. (I am not an MD and even if I were I would not offer a diagnosis over the web; I am simply offering some information that you might wish to follow up with your medical care provider.)

It is 215 am again, I am having strong pains between my shoulderblades, almost taking my breath. Heavy feeling still in my legs, I also have a headache that is in the back of my head and at my temples. I am taking some aspirin for that right now, It is accompanied by the loud, shrill ringing in my ears. I am pretty much miserable tonight, and alertness eludes me, I am making mistake after mistake at my work.

reply to post by space cadet

Hello Space Cadet,

sorry that you are having a rotten time of it... Your symptoms sound pretty severe and if they are precursors it suggests something major is brewing. Do you have any notes from prior experiences that suggest what region/s your symptoms may indicate?

reply to post by JustMike

...it does concern me that the Dr placed him on antibiotics without having any definitive diagnosis.

YankeeRose, I meant to comment on that myself. Bizarre. Email Charlotte because I know tingling is one of her precursors, but I've never connected it up with a region yet. It's worth a shot. I recall in her ATS interview, she mentioned tingling of the face as one of her reactions to a nuclear detonation.

If he has precursor pains and that region hits, then you'll know he's a sensitive. I've been hearing some unusual precursors this week-- not for SoCal though. I sincerely believe a lot, if not most, of the population is EQ sensitive-- all those little aches and pains that pop up for no apparent reason, then go away without treatment of any sort.

And do let us know how this turns out, please.



[edit on 8/2/08 by kattraxx]

It sounds like SpaceCadet is having a mix of precursors.... I'm having a few of the same, let's see... my headache is slight, but in the same areas, temples and right back of head. I've had the tightness between the shoulder blades for days now-- this is what messes me up sometimes-- I'll attribute something like that to the fact that I've been doing some pretty heavy labor in my back yard, until I hear that someone else is having the same ache-- that helps a lot. Same with my left elbow-- that's been aching pretty good for a couple weeks-- but I figured it was the digging, then all of a sudden, it pops up in Char's email alert.

I'm having a mix of precursors myself again today. I see Bolivia had another EQ.

Magnitude 4.2 - POTOSI, BOLIVIA
2008 August 02 05:58:27 UTC

Not huge, but that specific precursor is right on for Bolivia.

I'm still getting some Mexico, I believe. Possibly some Turkey, which Char says often follows an EQ in Greece. Some Indonesia this morning... Nothing is really standing out to me yet. I focus mostly on North America and a few regions that seem to be more obvious to me. If I ever get seriously intense precursors, naturally I'd mention it no matter what the region.

Remember that these precursors include volcanic eruptions, so you may also react to places like Hawaii, Java, Jakarta, Alaska, Monserrat, etc. But to figure out which region, you have to consider all your precursors, and even then, it can be difficult. There might've been some offshore Oregon going on yesterday. And some China. Thing is, even if a region is constantly seismically active, you still have to deal with the precursors and learn which ones are for which regions. That's what I'm trying to do right now. The precursors for these regions that are seismically active often get in the way and confuse the issue-- for me. Like Oceania and the domino islands, the south Pacific, Alaska, etc. I'm trying to learn to separate them out and see what's left. And there is also a lot of intuition involved... sometimes I just go with whichever region seems to stand out for me. And a lot of times, I'm wrong. It's a learning process.

I noticed last night while watering my vegetable garden, that the ants were swarming. This could be a result of watering the garden deeply two days before, so who knows. Just mentioning it. We have been having micro-EQ's here in Reno again. In fact, I know I felt one last night right at 9 p.m. while on the phone. It was the same bumping sensation I've noted before and I figured it for something around a 1.9 magnitude. And I noted the time, but here are the listed EQ's for Reno yesterday.

MAP 1.2 2008/08/02 00:08:18 39.570 -119.939 8.0 6 km ( 4 mi) NNE of Verdi-Mogul, NV
MAP 1.4 2008/08/01 22:48:08 39.530 -119.912 8.0 4 km ( 3 mi) ENE of Verdi-Mogul, NV
MAP 1.6 2008/08/01 22:18:08 39.510 -119.912 4.0 4 km ( 2 mi) E of Verdi-Mogul, NV
MAP 1.5 2008/08/01 21:45:01 39.510 -119.912 0.0 4 km ( 2 mi) E of Verdi-Mogul, NV
MAP 1.7 2008/08/01 19:41:19 39.589 -119.966 0.0 8 km ( 5 mi) N of Verdi-Mogul, NV

It really makes me wonder if they're just using a dart board over there to log magnitudes and times of EQ's. It happens all the time.

My puppy was a bit restless last night-- as I mentioned to Char in an email regarding the SoCal EQ. He kept getting up with a whine and moving to a different spot. I thought he might've gotten ahold of something and didn't feel well, but then there was the SoCal EQ the next morning. Plus, as I said, we've been having our micro-EQ's again here in Reno.

Also noted more odd clouds last night, which makes it three days in a row. I believe Charlotte said the clouds don't necessarily have to show up in the area where the EQ will be.

SpaceCadet, did you see this? Is this near you?

Magnitude 2.3 - ALABAMA
2008 August 02 01:41:19 UTC

earthquake.usgs.gov...

I believe this would fit with your New Madrid precursors.

[edit on 8/2/08 by kattraxx]

Did you all happen to see that they just had a total solar eclipse in China? They seen it as a good Omen but I am not quite so sure. With all their recent attempts at weather modification and all to get the air quality up, I think they are going to force mother natures hand and it wont be good. That area has been seismically quiet for awhile.

I hate speculating but through out history eclipse have been omens to bolth good and bad things but China has never done anything good so this cant be a good omen. I think mother nature has had it with the trashing of the environment over there and now it is time for some payback. The earth has a history of taking back what has been stolen from it.

God has given us many warnings before very bad things happen like world wars. Maybe he sees a big earthquake where all the world is watching as a good warning to all.

I just have a bad feeling about China and the games. Something is just not right.

Just an update on Joey... he awoke this morning with a very sore throat accompanied by the usual strep type infection markers... thank goodness. We have had this before, but he has never had these type of symptoms three days in advance of an infection. I am blessed that it has manifested as an infection instead of the meningitis I thought it might be.

The weirdness of his aches and pains is still out of the norm for us. I have not approached him with my suspicion of his perhaps being sensitive to earth changes, as he already thinks his mother is a loon... lol But I am going to continue to observe him, and monitor his health concerns in conjunction with earth changes.

Thank you all so much for your help in this matter...

Bright Blessings

Originally posted by yankeerose
The weirdness of his aches and pains is still out of the norm for us. I have not approached him with my suspicion of his perhaps being sensitive to earth changes, as he already thinks his mother is a loon... lol

Bright Blessings

Yankeerose,

you might be surprised at how he might take to the idea of being sensitive. I work with young people all the time -- mostly high school grad sort of age -- and I'd say many of them are very receptive to such concepts. You could also point out that research has been done that indicates there may be a physical basis to a lot of what we (and animals) pick up on, due to pre-quake em changes in the earth. That might get his interest. He could have a look at this thread come to that...

Just a thought. It seems to me that many young people have a range of sensitivities and they more-or-less "grow out" of them as they get older. Not because those abilities have gone away, but because we are socialized by our "modern" society to not "believe" in them.

Just my 2 cents' worth

[edit on 2/8/08 by JustMike]

reply to post by kattraxx

There might've been some offshore Oregon going on yesterday

Magnitude 3.9 - OFF THE COAST OF OREGON
2008 August 02 20:13:06 UTC

Again, not huge, but this area concerns us, and I'm pretty happy about this hit because this was a new set of precursors for me, that Charlotte mentioned in her last email alert a couple days ago. Plus, I've been a bit confused the past two days by the onset of so many precursors.

YankeeRose, I'm glad you and your son have an answer. I'm sure you're relieved.

Hi all -

Just wanted to poke my head in here and say how much I am enjoying this thread. Thanks to all those who post here regularly.

I have been dealing with sciatica - lower back pain, numbness and tingling in my right foot and leg - for about a year now, so I don't know that I am much good at seperating any of that out and seeing if I can contribute to the list of precursers. But I think this collection of data does have merit, and I am very interested in reading the data coming in here.

From Southern California,
Tadarida

Originally posted by Tadarida
Hi all -

Just wanted to poke my head in here and say how much I am enjoying this thread. Thanks to all those who post here regularly.

I have been dealing with sciatica - lower back pain, numbness and tingling in my right foot and leg - for about a year now, so I don't know that I am much good at separating any of that out and seeing if I can contribute to the list of precursors. But I think this collection of data does have merit, and I am very interested in reading the data coming in here.

From Southern California,
Tadarida

Welcome to the thread. I had a cyst on my S1 nerve root doing that to me years ago and I put up with it till it made me start to limp. I had it removed and things were great. I just had my S1-L5 fused for the second time a month ago and I'm still recovering so if you have any question about your back feel free to drop me a u2u.

I would say just don't include your legs and lower back in your precursors and you will do fine. If you feel pain in your left leg you may want to see a doc fast, Dont blow that one off.

Kat I noticed how you picked up the Oregon quake before, Nice job.