An Experiment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction

reply to post by kattraxx
Good pickup!

Hmmm... Most unusual for USGS to delete offshore quakes in that region. As you say, they might post it six days late, just a few hours before it would drop off the maps. (We have examples logged on this thread for any new readers who might think we're just kidding.)

And yes, I also checked and there were no quakes of any significance elsewhere in the world that occurred within the time window for a teleseismic pickup of a distant P-wave. (Again for any new readers: with the speed that P waves travel at, the time window is quite narrow, with a limit of around 14 minutes for a quake on the other side of the world. And the quake would have to be around a mag 5 or bigger to register on enough seismographs in Cal to trigger an auto-plot and raise a data page.)

ATS member Mushussu on the big "Yellowstone" made a prediction two days ago for a quake offshore in the Nth Cal region within 24-48 hours. (Things were quiet at the time so it was posted for discussion about external influences in relation to Yellowstone.) This one is more central coast, but even so, it's odd that it got deleted.

Too close to Frisco, maybe?

Whatever the reason, we'll have to keep a close eye on that area, then.

Mike
Edit for typos.

[edit on 12/1/09 by JustMike]

Central Cali coast checking in here... it just feels 'weird' here today. Unusually warm, but the birds seem normal thus far this morning.

Originally posted by soma_pills

My intuition is telling me SoCal, either Yucca Valley/desert area or south of Salton Sea/Imperial Valley into northern Baja. To get specific I'll say the area bordered by the 15, 10, 40 freeways/highways (so Big Bear to Yucca to Joshua Tree basically) or The Salton Sea to the Gulf.

I dunno, this is my first real attempt at guessing an actual location but that's what I am getting. I'll say within next 5 days for padding (1st time...a little cushion...lol) but likely next 3 days, minimum 4.0.

Well, looks like my first attempt at a prediction was a miss (technically it hasn't been 5 days yet but my real gut was for 3 days so to me it is a miss regardless). It was educational though. The Salton to Baja area had 3 quakes within the first 24 hours after I posted (3.3, 3.2, 3.0) and Big Bear had a 3.6 within 48 hours. So, while I did not get my 4.0+ magnitude, both areas had some decent activity. Hopefully I can get better at understanding my symptoms and get some solid hits in the future.

It is almost 300am, est, I am having very strong heart palps, along with a strange feeling that almost feels like I am vibrating or shaking inside, I am disoriented, that confused feeling. Earlier tonight ( mon night) around 9 2 of my dogs started vomiting too.

reply to post by blujay
Hi blujay and welcome! Thanks for the report. We really need more people who are "on the ground" (so to speak) in key areas, especially if quakes get reported by USGS then deleted, so we can find out if anyone felt them or if they really didn't happen...

Any reports about animal/bird activity and unusual weather are also very useful from the point of view of watching for possible precursors, so please feel free to post any time you wish.

Great to have you with us!

Mike

reply to post by soma_pills
I think you did pretty well. Magnitude is one of the hardest things to tie down, actually. If you check some of the data readouts for individual quakes from places like USGS, you'll notice that the posted magnitudes can vary quite a bit from the range of mag estimates that come in from various stations. Of necessity, there is an averaging process involved, and this is one reason why some quakes have their initial reported magnitudes upgraded or downgraded. There are even cases logged here where they have been regraded up, down, then up again (and vice versa), depending on the parameters that are used to assign the "official" magnitudes.

You'll also quite commonly see that in respect of USGS postings for quakes outside of the US, their own posted magnitudes are at variance with those posted by equivalent scientific organizations in the countries of origin (or nearby). Again, this is apparently due to differences in their parameters.

Those "parameters" might also include political factors, I should add...

I've found that my own predictions have sometimes tended to be up to around one magnitude higher than the eventual quake. Considering we are still in the very early stages of this study I think it's best to not be too hard on ourselves where magnitudes are concerned, within reason of course. For example, if I predict a mag 5 and a quake happens in the stated area and time frame but it's in the mid mag-4 range, that's acceptable. If it's down in the mag 3 range or less then it's much too far from what's expected to be taken seriously, especially if it's in a reasonably active area that gets mag 3's or less every week.

It's useful to consider the relative frequency and magnitude of quakes in a given region when evaluating predictions -- both in terms of making them in the first place and also claiming hits. For example, quakes above the mid-4 range are relatively uncommon in Cal and the PNW, whereas for example in Indonesia, they have such quakes almost every day. There, it would be pointless to predict mag 4's or even up to mid 5's. They only become highly significant from the point of view of predictions if they are above a 6. However, in much of the US outside of Cal/PNW, quakes above mag 3 are relatively uncommon, so predicting even mag 3's in such places has some statistical validity.

If you search around you'll find some websites on the internet where they "predict" quakes for very large areas and within a week or two they'll cover practically every seismically-active region on the planet. They also often give themselves very long time windows -- like two or three weeks -- and allow a lot of deviation from predicted magnitude as well. This almost guarantees that they'll get a high number of "hits", but while it looks good to the uninformed, it's really useless and proves nothing except that they know where quakes occur most often!

The problem is that many people who follow such sites probably don't know much about the process at all, so they are fooled into believing that whoever is running it is really some kind of genius/gifted person and everything they say must be taken as true. They also probably don't know that some such sites doubtless pick up a little money from advertising as traffic is driven there every time there is a large event and people want to find someone who can predict where the next "big one" will be. And then of course they can offer special "subscription" services (for a fee) so you'll "get the news first". Nothing wrong with that if the person/site offering the service has a track record of realistic, effective predictions, but otherwise, it's just a grab for cash.

To evaluate your predictions, you can also do a search of databases to find out what the odds are of a quake of a certain magnitude occurring within (say) 200 miles of that point within a given time frame. This is something I check quite often and it's useful to know.

Anyway, this post is starting to look like a novel so I'll leave it there for now.

Regards,

Mike

Hey guys n gals..

been sick for a bit so I haven't been able to decipher any pre-cursor symptoms.

But im still watching the thread and such..

just wanted to remind you guys that we have another "super moon" last weekend...
so for the rest of this week we should really keep an eye open.
things usually happen within that first week after the big moon.


I noticed that there has been an uptick in activity in the PNW.. infact, there was a small swarm under seattle a few days ago. funny though, nothing in the PNW is ever showing up in red these days... always orange or yellow.
and that swarm north of searles valley is still bumping.

Kilauea volcano in Hawaii is still at Level Orange. I'm beginning to believe that must have been what we were picking up, instead of YS. Or it could've been a combination of all the increased volcanic activity going on during those few days.

Kilauea went to Level Orange that night, after some of us experienced the volcanic precursors, as defined by Charlotte. Also, Cleveland volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutians, is at Level Yellow. But it's been rumbling for a while.

For now at least, I'm going to log those specific precursors we experienced under Kilauea volcano in a "test" mode. Kilauea has been relatively quiet the past couple days.

I see Greece had a 5.2. for those of you logging possible SoCal precursors. Those areas have very similar precursors. And as Charlotte said in her ATS interview, we can now expect a domino effect in the Aegean Sea, and/or an EQ in Turkey. I've seen that a more than a few times.

Generally, the world is pretty quiet.

soma_pills, good call on SoCal. A lot of times, we get precursors that feel like a possible 4.0, but what hits is a series of +3.0's, +3.5's, etc.--- which releases the same amount of energy in the long run, give or take.

Edit to add: pynner, I see you posted too. Hope you're feeling better. I saw the Seattle swarm too. And I think I only saw one in red one time. But I've been watching it. Charlotte predicted WA activity in her last email alert.


[edit on 1/13/09 by kattraxx]

Originally posted by space cadet
It is almost 300am, est, I am having very strong heart palps, along with a strange feeling that almost feels like I am vibrating or shaking inside, I am disoriented, that confused feeling. Earlier tonight ( mon night) around 9 2 of my dogs started vomiting too.

I have had a major uptick in 'stuff' over the last 24, including heart palps and the 'inner trembling'. I don't get that very often. Here is my approx list of symptoms and the times for the last 24.

Yesterday (1/12/09)

1-4 PM: Inner trembling, like I was cold but more the physical trembling and not actually being cold

7-9 PM: Heart skips/palps at various times

10-11 PM: multiple short, right ear tones, faint, high pitch, kind of faded into an overall high pitch whine in right ear.

---sleep---

Today (1/13/09)

9 AM: Right side headache and right ear still has a low whine to it but not as bad as yesterday.

Have to try and correlate symptoms. Intuition is not giving me anything at the moment.

Magnitude 3.0
Date-Time Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 18:22:32 UTC
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 10:22:32 AM at epicenter

Location 39.310°N, 119.829°W
Depth 0 km (~0 mile) set by location program
Region NEVADA
Distances 5 km (3 miles) WNW (288°) from New Washoe City, NV
13 km (8 miles) NE (56°) from Incline Village-Crystal Bay, NV
18 km (11 miles) ENE (65°) from Kings Beach, CA
18 km (11 miles) NNW (339°) from Carson City, NV
24 km (15 miles) S (181°) from Reno, NV
165 km (102 miles) ENE (59°) from Sacramento, CA

external image

South of here, in the vicinity of Steamboat Hot Springs. Figured I'd post it before it got deleted. Explains the Seismic Flu (a term Charlotte coined) yesterday. We both had a bout of it.

Soma, I woke with the same right temple/ear pain, then the left ear started up for a bit, moderate. Did your teeth hurt at any time in the past twenty four hours? And I just got an ear tone around 10:30; lasted about 10 seconds, mid-range, single unbroken tone. I don't really get ear tones much, although it seems like it's happening more and more.


[edit on 1/13/09 by kattraxx]

reply to post by kattraxx


Now THAT is a lot of quakes on one little map...
Hot and dry here, animals behaving normal though. We better hang on tight, the moon is still large.

Originally posted by kattraxx
Soma, I woke with the same right temple/ear pain, then the left ear started up for a bit, moderate. Did your teeth hurt at any time in the past twenty four hours? And I just got an ear tone around 10:30; lasted about 10 seconds, mid-range, single unbroken tone. I don't really get ear tones much, although it seems like it's happening more and more.

[edit on 1/13/09 by kattraxx]

No, no teeth pain that I recall. Today was just a really sore right neck and back-of-head-to-top-of-head pain. I did 5 minutes of standing meditation and focused on releasing and it went away. In fact as of this moment I am pretty 'quiet' on all fronts. Maybe the Reno EQ was part of it.

I am having a heck of a time figuring out what all the other stuff yesterday means though. Could point to a number of regions. I am going to sit this one out as far as any predictions but I get the feeling there will be a fair amount of red squares popping up over the next 48 hours.

DELETED: Event NN 00271896

== EVENT DELETED NOTIFICATION ==

***This event has been deleted after review by a seismologist.***

Geographic coordinates: 39.310N, 119.829W
Magnitude: 3.0
Universal Time (UTC): 13 Jan 2009 18:22:32
Time near the Epicenter: 13 Jan 2009 10:22:32

Location with respect to nearby cities:
5 km (3 miles) WNW (288 degrees) of New Washoe City, NV
13 km (8 miles) NE (56 degrees) of Incline Village-Crystal Bay, NV
18 km (11 miles) ENE (65 degrees) of Kings Beach, CA
24 km (15 miles) S (181 degrees) of Reno, NV
165 km (102 miles) ENE (59 degrees) of Sacramento, CA


DISCLAIMER: sslearthquake.usgs.gov...

Taken from a USGS email notification.

Lots of action in the geothermal areas. Still expecting something around 4.0 this week.

Magnitude 3.4 - CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
2009 January 14 05:08:21 UTC

36.741°N, 121.337°W
Depth 9.1 km (5.7 miles)
Region CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
Distances 6 km (4 miles) SSW (196°) from Tres Pinos, CA
13 km (8 miles) SSE (155°) from Hollister, CA
21 km (13 miles) ESE (123°) from San Juan Bautista, CA
83 km (52 miles) SE (143°) from San Jose City Hall, CA



[edit on 1/13/09 by kattraxx]

Getting lots of symptoms right now. Was talking with an ex girlfriend today who gets symptoms. Here's what we've experienced in the last few hours.

Her:
Several ear blocks with pressure/pain, one with a long tone. All right side.
Vertigo
Sudden fatigue
Head pain, top left
Chest pain, left side

Me:
Right ear high pitch whine all morning
Sudden fatigue
Spacey/out of it for about an hour, totally random, feel fine now.
Left knee pain

She feels like central to southern cal. She never realized there was a connection to her symptoms before we talked today, so hard to get specific as far as a prediction...just intuition. Is anyone else getting anything right now?

Also, just saw this 2.6 in NV near Lovelock. Screen shot in case it gets deleted.

Hey Kat, was this the 4.0 you were looking for?

2009/01/13 18:19:46 48.85N 129.15W 10.0* 4.2Mw
238 km W of Tofino,BC


didn't show up on any usgs lists.. or my firefox plugin

Originally posted by JustMike
reply to post by soma_pills
I think you did pretty well.

Magnitude is one of the hardest things to tie down, actually...

Thanks Mike. I felt good about the accuracy of the locations. I am being a bit of a stickler in not calling it a hit as I don't want to be one of those people you alluded to who make sweeping predictions for huge areas/time windows and then call it a 'hit'. I think you and I have seen a lot of the same web sites.
I agree though, mag seems to be tougher than location, at least for me in my very limited experience.

3.1 offshore NorCal...another potential delete candidate.

Thanks, Just Mike for inviting me here.

I have been having huge headaches for almost a month now, but it has included constant ear aches too. The ear aches have pressure on them most of the time. I in fact have had to start taking night PM tylenol to sleep.

I have to say another thing that is weird - I was completely sick/ queasy and threw up and then shaking the day that the 7.6 earthquake hit on the 3 of Jan. this year in Indonesia. I was out of town - but had not done anything or found any reason to cause my sickness all day - plus it did not stay with me, after that one day I was fine.

One other thing, I was in Thailand when the China earthquake hit last year.
I was there for medical reasons, but I also know and remember the day that earthquake hit. It had been 2 weeks since my surgery there, but that one day - I was in so much pain and could not even talk on the phone - it was one of the worst days of pain and shakiness I have ever had.

Now, I don't know if I am sensitive or not, but I do know the amount of headaches and ear aches that have stayed with me is unusual and not normal. I have never paid attention to any symptoms I have had in the past with an earthquake before, besides the two mentioned above.

If I am a sensitive (which I am not saying I am) then all I can say - is something is building up - as it is like airplane pressure in my ears.

I also mentioned in the Yellowstone thread - something around my area is the fact that many people right now are having headaches and dizziness.

They state it is a "flu". I just think those are odd symptoms without other ones for being a "flu".

Hello everyone,

I've been very busy but I have been checking in as much as I can.

On Mon. night I was very tired and went to bed early, I woke with such pain at the base of my skull and a headache that went through to the back of my eyes. What was very unusual and peeked my interest was I have extremely LOUD ear ringing 24/7 and my right ear stopped ringing for a good minute I was beside myself it was so nice, lol.....I looked at the clock and it was 11:11 (spooky)

Also as you know I am observing South America. Even though nothing at all is happening where I wrote about and really shouldn't because there isn't much there I see that on the other side of where I am watching is none stop eathquakes and that area isn't usually quaked like that so something isn't right.

I also had another flash but it was showing the red circle going into Africa like the smaller circle I saw..... and the bigger circle from Central Mid Atlantic Ridge into Brazil. If this should ever occur I am wondering if the smaller would occur first from the Central Mid Atlantic Ridge to Africa then the larger one linking and over to Brazil. I should let this go because there isn't any evidence of such quakes in this locations but I'm can't give up on it yet. I just read what I wrote and I didn't understand it eaither,lol.

Also something I want to write that I wish I had payed more attention to but I was in a rush.

I checked the world map and I saw a quake in South America yesterday in a certain location so I then went to the IRIS map to see if it was there and it was not. I didn't have time to check it out then but later (quickly) I checked IRIS and it still wasn't there. Today I checked both maps and it just came up earlier on the IRIS map.

I can't figure out why it was on the world map yesterday in red and nothing at all on the IRIS map and in red on the IRIS map today????

After reading this I should delete this is what happens when you rush to write something it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but maybe you guys get the drift of what I am saying....I hope

My best as always to everyone