An Experiment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction

kattrax: last night saturday about 9:30 edst i ran out of gas and had to walk about two miles to get more. about ten oclock my right wrist started to hurt and slightly swell on the top in a spot below index finger. i didn't injure it walking and found it odd! also right palm opposite swelling itched most of saturday evening.
also right ear ringing most of the evening and most of sunday and a lost feeling with anxiety type of discomfort. is this what and where you would like logged?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Mr Thomas' site now shows different prediction data from what it showed when I posted here on Oct 7.

I've copied and pasted the latest data below, but as this time I've copied all of it and not just one column it won't line up as side-by-side columns as he has it on his website:

October 10-16; Earthquake risk in California EARTHQUAKE WARNING; 6.9 earthquake is likely in Southern California; October 10-11 - LA frictional heating graph
# Possible epicenter locations; Calabasas, Sherman Oaks, Beverly Hills; Malibu fault
# Redlands, Loma Linda; San Jacinto fault
# Chino Hills; Elsinore fault
# Coachella and Salton Sea area; San Andreas fault
RISK IN LOS ANGELES;
Oct 15: 15% - MAP
Oct 14: 26% - MAP
Oct 13: 46% - MAP
Oct 12: 73% - MAP
Oct 11: 89% - MAP -
Oct 10: 98% - MAP - 6.9
RISK IN SAN FRANCISCO;
Oct 15: 36% - MAP
Oct 14: 50% - MAP
Oct 13: 63% - MAP -
Oct 12: 71% - MAP - 3.1
Oct 11: 66% - MAP - /
Oct 10: 54% - MAP

Here's the source for the above material (at the time of this post).

If you refer back to my post on the previous page (linked in my opening sentence of this post), you'll see that Mr Thomas originally posted the following data for Oct 10, 11, and 12:
RISK IN LOS ANGELES;
Oct 12: 05%
Oct 11: 06% - MAP
Oct 10: 25% - MAP

Now, the L.A. figure for Oct 10 has gone from a 25% likelihood to 98%, Oct 11 from 06% to 89%, and Oct 12 from 05% to 73%.

Frankly, this looks like a case of: "the prediction didn't come out so now it's time to move it forward". Frankly I don't agree with this methodology. The site's page that contains these latest figures offers no explanation for their change or even mentions the fact that they have been changed. However, I must admit that it could simply be that Mr Thomas was able to refine his data and hence changed the figures. If that is the case it would be good if he'd actually post a statement to that effect. Otherwise, the assumption I've mentioned is the most obvious.

This time, at least I also have a screen shot of the website's prediction page as it is right now, so that I can post it in the event that the data gets changed yet again.

Mike

reply to post by JustMike


I'll continue posting in here whenever i get rings. I think those leading up to that 7.x in Indonesia were the worst i ever experienced. Insomnia/headache/total mental fog/multiple rings. I also think that's the furthest EQ i've ever gotten rings for....total opposite side of the planet from my location

reply to post by oldgoat

Thank you. I think it's good that you posted and it will be great if you continue to do so. We appreciate any input and it all helps to build a pool of data. Also, we appreciate any references and/or links to other sites that are considering the subject of quake prediction in a pro-active way, so thank you again for posting that link a few pages back. It doesn't matter that we don't have much knowledge of Mr Thomas' methods at present -- or even of his actual success rate on original (meaning un-revised) predictions. Hopefully we can find out more eventually.

About "revised" predictions: in my opinion, Mr Thomas' original prediction should be taken as a "miss" as no quake within or even near his stated range occurred in the given region in the originally stated high-likelihood time frame. This "revised" data on his site should be considered as a separate prediction. Otherwise, it is not actually prediction at all: if we don't count prior predictions as "misses" then the data relating to accuracy is completely invalid; if we do count them as misses (as we should), then we can assess true accuracy.

I don't expect Mr Thomas, Kattrax, myself, or anyone else to be 100% accurate. None of us do. Misses are going to occur. Even so, it's helpful to have all the predictions logged and even more helpful that they remain as originally stated. Here, we have the advantage that our time window for editing posts is quite limited and this helps to maintain the validity of our posted predictions. And where a significant prediction misses, it's also helpful if that is noted after the time window has passed. (You'll find a few examples of my declared "no hit" results in the "Results" thread.)

I'd love to have Mr Thomas join us here and tell us more about his own methods. It doesn't matter if his original prediction missed, and as we don't understand the details of his system, we'd like to know more -- especially as he's now posted a revised data set (which as I've said should best be considered as new prediction if we want to assess things empirically). As Kat mentioned, we are always open to any ideas that can help to "advance the cause" (so to speak), and finding them is too big a task for just one or two people to effectively handle: we need all the help we can get!

Best regards,

Mike

Okay, here's the latest info about the prediction/s for California from the quakeprediction.com site. No quake of the magnitude predicted has occurred in the stated region as yet (within the given time frames) and now, the data has been changed yet again.

Here's a screen shot that I took yesterday, after I found that the earlier prediction and data had been "revised":
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8ae6f760b8b3.jpg[/atsimg]

I have already commented about this "revision", and as promised, I am now posting a screen shot of the latest chart and its latest, revised "data", so the two can be compared:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/834b2be6c995.jpg[/atsimg]

At the time of this post, the above image can still be seen on the site here. (The first image I've posted is no longer available on that site. It's simply been replaced by the new one above.)

The site seems to give no information about the reasons for these changes or any acknowledgment that the previous predictions missed. To be frank, this is looking more and more like an example of updating the prediction - and also, in this case, downgrading the magnitude to improve the odds -- until such time as a quake within that mag range occurs in the stated region and time frame, so that a "hit" can then be claimed.

Meanwhile, I can only repeat what I've previously stated: if we want to analyze this the right way, we ought to consider the previous charts/data sets as individual predictions and -- as they have not come to pass -- they are "misses" (or "no hits"). However, as we were not monitoring the quakeprediction.com site earlier, we don't know if this has been an ongoing "rolling prediction" or not and so even the data sets we have captured may not be the first for that region. If anyone knows or has a way to access the older posts from that site then please let us know. Maybe they're archived somewhere?

I am reluctantly coming to believe that the quakeprediction.com site is basically a scam, and that its purpose may be more focused on generating ad revenue than any legitimate attempt at quake prediction. If I'm wrong and Mr Thomas can refute my statements then I'll gladly offer him my apologies.

Mike

Since I made the above post about 9 1/2 hours ago, the operator of quakeprediction.com (Mr Luke Thomas) has posted an updated chart that includes info/data for San Francisco, and a prediction for that region as well. I thought it best to get a screen shot and post it here for the record:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/005d716cd8e4.jpg[/atsimg]

Here is the source for the above image. Of course, this image will drop off the site when the next update or prediction is posted there.

I leave it to you all to interpret these data sets as you see fit. I've already posted my own opinions but I certainly don't mind if members disagree with my assessment.

Mike

Just for general information, I decided to do a statistical analysis of the likelihood of a mag 3.2 to mag 4.0 quake in the San Francisco bay region in a given period. I feel that this might help us to appreciate the likelihood of Mr Thomas’ prediction being right on the basis of pure chance -- as this is the assessment criteria often used to determine the validity of such predictions.

To do an analysis like this, you need a good database that holds records of quakes by magnitude, time and location, and that (preferably) also allows you to choose variables within those criteria and search a given are for a specific time and magnitude range. The NEIC database is good for this, so that’s the one I used.

I did a search with these variables:
Location: I used this page about San Francisco Bay on Wikipedia to obtain the coordinates of 37.717 N, 122.283 W. (Note: I rounded up the lat coordinates from 37.7166. It makes very little difference to the overall result. Also, the longitude figure is input in the search as a minus number. All “West“ longitudes are minus. If we used a non-minus number then we‘d be on the wrong side of the world but at the same latitude.)
Area of search: this is always an arbitrary choice. I felt that if a quake occurred within 64 kilometers (around 40 miles) of the Bay’s coordinates then it would be fair enough to accept it as in the right area, even if not all points 40 miles away are actually considered to be part of the Bay region. So, I chose the “circle” search format with the above coordinates as the centre and gave the radius of the circle as 64 km.
Magnitude: Mr Thomas’ prediction states the quake should be between magnitude 3.2 and 4.0, so they are low- and high-range figures I input in to NEIC search facility.
Time frame: The larger the amount of data with such varibale things as seismic events, the better chance of getting a reasonable figure for averaging. The NEIC database holds data from 1973 onwards. A check showed that there was only 1 quake in the above range in that year, which occurred on Dec 29. So, as the time frame is quite large, I made the start date Oct 12, 1973 and the end date Oct 11, 2010, to give a period of exactly 37 years.

True, I could have taken the start date as of the first quake (ie Dec of 73), but the percentage difference in total time is minimal and in the final result we’re only looking for a rough percentage likelihood of the event, not minute fractions of a percent.

Inputting the above parameters yields a list of 245 earthquakes. In other words, over the past 37 years, there have been 245 quakes in the range of mag 3.2 to mag 4.0 within about 40 miles of the Bay’s defined coordinates. As posting the complete data list would take up a huge amount of space (and maybe several posts to fit it all in here), I’ve instead posted a screen shot of the main section of the results page here:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/88a9ddb1a0c1.jpg[/atsimg]

Also, if you click on this link to the NEIC search page you’ll be able to input the parameters yourself and confirm my results.

Okay, that’s the prelim. Now we do the sums…

A total of 245 quakes in 37 years works out at 6.621 quakes per year. Purely from a statistical point of view, we can also calculate the average number of days from one quake to the next. If there are 6.621 quakes per year and each year has 365 days*, then we simply do 365/6.621 and get a figure of 55.127 days. Simply put, this means that the odds of a quake in that magnitude range occurring in the given area work out at 1.818% (recurring).

*I’m ignoring leap years for sake of this exercise and just using a standard 365-day year. As I mentioned before, it makes a trivial amount of difference for the figures we need in this exercise.

So, ball park figure: on the basis of known data, there is only around a 2% chance that a quake will occur in that region today, Oct 12, 2010. If it happens (and therefore Mr Thomas would be right) then I’ll be pretty impressed.

Incidentally, there have only been 16 quakes of precisely mag 4.0 in that same region and time frame. Just 16 in 37 years. So the odds of a mag 4.0 occurring there on any given day are very small indeed. Even if we do a rough calculation and (again) ignore the few extra days from leap years, 37 years is 13,505 days. With just 16 quakes in all that time it comes out at (statistically) one quake roughly every 844 days!

On the other hand, what if a quake occurs there today, but it’s say a mag lower -- like a 2.2? Well, as you all know, the lower the magnitude the quake, the more of them there are. In this case, using the same parameters and just changing the low-range mag from 3.2 to 2.2, the number of quakes in the region jumps from 245 to 826. Even so, the odds are still not very favorable. If we use the same methods of calculation and do 826/37, we get 22.324 quakes per year. To get the day interval, we use 365/22.324 and get the figure of 16.35 days. (Aren’t calculators wonderful? ) So, the odds on a given day are around 6.12%.

If you’re not asleep yet, then thank you for reading through all of this. I hope it helps to explain a bit more about the difficulties we’re up against in trying to make accurate predictions. It also explains why it’s poor science to keep moving goalposts (so to speak) by revising the prediction’s data. It’s far better to pick a reasonable time frame and stick to.

Further, it helps to show why we are sometimes pretty excited when we get a prediction right and the odds of doing so were down in the single-digit range. And in case any newcomers are wondering (and you’re right to wonder!), we don’t predict quakes in very low mag ranges for places that typically have them on an almost daily basis. We tend to steer away from that sort of thing as it serves no real purpose.

Regards,

Mike

EDIT to add: no sooner have I posted this but on checking back on the quakeprediction.com site, I find that Mr Thomas has revised his prediction for SF Bay. Now he's tightened up the mag range (which greatly reduces the odds of its occurrence) and also changed the data for the percentages, but additionally, he's now made the prediction for a two-day period instead of the single day he'd posted a few hours ago.

Anyway, here's the screen shot:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/339f2f7a72cc.jpg[/atsimg]

The source for the above image is here. As usual, this image will drop off the site when the next revision is posted.

Mike

I see there've been no replies to my recent posts, but all the same at least they're useful for future reference.

Okay, here's a screen shot of Luke Thomas' QuakePredictions.com website's main page, which I took at 09:29 am UTC today, Oct 16, 2010:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3a7670fae5e3.jpg[/atsimg]

I think it's now clear what's going on here. Mr Thomas is maintaining a "rolling prediction" and simply moving his dates forward and varying his percentage and magnitude/location "data" a little as he does so. I expect that he will keep doing this until he scores a "hit" and can then claim his "prediction" was successful. It's convenient for him that his former (unsuccessful) predictions are not held on his website, as this lack of evidence of "no hit" attempts makes his "successes" look quite impressive.

In short, don't be fooled by him, because this methodology is not prediction at all. It's purely guessing combined with removing evidence of all failures/misses and waiting until he gets one right.

He has managed to get a fair amount of radio and TV interviews and other media coverage on this basis and some apparently consider him a marvel in this field, which I find a touch disturbing. We could do the same thing -- but not here on ATS, of course, where our posts are available even for years and can't be edited by us (the posters) after just a few hours!

Okay, I won't bother posting more screen shots from Mr Thomas' "prediction" site for now, though I may maintain a file of screenshots. Anyone with their eyes open can see what's going on here. How he manages to fool so many people is a bit beyond me. I guess it's that they only check his website when he claims a hit -- and, by golly, there it is -- and for sure, his prediction was posted before the event happened! You can't blame people for being taken in by that, I guess. But we won't be. Not now.

Kat, I very much doubt that Mr Thomas is ever going to find the time in his busy schedule to join ATS and visit our thread to discuss his "methods".

Mike

JustMike great posts above.

Today I am thinking a different way. I have been watching the stock market go up (I know nothing about the stock market) I don't know why it would go up as it has because nothing in the economy has gotten better doesn't make sense.

I think it is going up because they have it planned that way and it just a matter before it crashes and that might been just/somewhat after they get their millions in bonuses..... whenever that is (if it hasn't happened already in which case i am way off)

I would think a short period after a crash a large quake will occur to cover themselves and get minds elsewhere.

The reason I think this was is I believe that have perfected Telsa's hand held device that causes earthquakes.

I am probably way off time will tell lol

I probably shouldn't write my thought on this but hey what the heck

This is ,"The Mr. Lee" coming out of retirement to let you know something Big is coming! I was a teacher of Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu Hawaii and developed the method to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions by solar and lunar eclipses shown on the SIFI Channel in 1997 & 1998. I accurately predicted the 1999 August 17 earthquake in Turkey 7 months before it happened with a TX library of Congress Copyright to prove it.
The Turkish magazine "Actual" ran a feature story on this in 1999 in Turkey.
I gave my info to Japanese earthquake researchers and in 2009 they repeated my solar eclipse method and
accurately predicted the earthquake in Japan in 2009. My method works because it is based on tidal forces of gravity not vudo! or astrology.

I'm currently have been working on coronal mass ejections from solar flares to come out with a new prediction method for this topic.

I'm predicting at the end of October the beginning of November 2010 The Volcano's National Park Kilauea Volcanic crater will erupt do to the solar eclipse that took place on the second week in July over Easter Island in 2010. The Halemaumau crater will fill up in November 2010 and lava will flow out moving east to the city of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii to end up in Hilo Bay if not stopped. There is only one way to stop the lava only been done in Hawaii twice before in the last 210 years. The time clock starts on October 21, 2010 this Thursday. This is not necessarily the eruption date realize this.
A solar phenomenon of six rainbows will appear one the East side of Halemaumau crater 24 hours before earthquake swarms hundreds of them and the main eruption will commence.

Signed,

Michael Kumukauoha Lee
Ewa Beach, Hawaii

reply to post by Mr. Lee

Thank you for your post. It's appreciated that you have chosen to come out of retirement and log your prediction here, where it can be preserved and no-one can argue that you altered your statements "after the event". We would also be glad if you could link to some on-line references of you previous predictions. I'd like to read up on them and perhaps also we could place some on file here, either within the thread or at least within the database that we maintain.

All methods that produce valid results need to be considered, so we will all be pleased for any other information that you might wish to share, either pertaining to your methodology or other predictions. While the thread is primarily about earthquake prediction, we have also considered other seismic activity and volcanic events as there are doubtless (in some cases) interactions at play.

I have seen many posts and threads, here and elsewhere, that consider the role of solar activity in such matters. I for one don't claim to understand precisely how this solar activity works vis a vis affecting seismic/volcanic events and I'm still trying to "get a handle on it" (so to speak), but just because I and perhaps many others don't follow it, that does not render it invalid by any means. I have personally experienced the "eclipse effect", where there is a drastic change in weather just after an eclipse has passed through, and that was quite something in itself. So, I'd be interested to know more.

Best regards and again, thank you for posting.

reply to post by observe50

Hi Observe,

I'd be interested to know more about this Tesla device. I hold this amazing inventor in the highest regard because (cliche notwithstanding) he was truly ahead of his time.

A hand-held device would be quite terrifying, if it were possible. Even a larger device is worrying. I have no idea if such a thing either exists or is even possible with current technology; there must be many things done in secret that we "ordinary people" never hear about.

Best regards,

Mike

No ear rings since a few weeks ago but last night the hearing in my right ear went out several times. This is normally the precursor to a ring

And currently my left ear is having an intermittent stabbing pain....this has never happened before so I don't know what to make of it (i'm not sick, haven't been exposed to anything loud). Just throwing it out there in case anyone else experiences something similar

The hearing just went out again in my right ear. Something's going on.

reply to post by oldgoat

Hi Oldgoat, I'll reply to both your posts together as the second is a direct follow-on from the first.

Certainly worth keeping notes on this. But more than that, if you have any inkling of what it might relate to -- meaning in what region of the world, if possible -- then please let us know. As I've said before, this is an "experimental" thread so there's no harm in being wrong.

Best regards,

Mike

Originally posted by JustMike
reply to post by oldgoat

 

Hi Oldgoat, I'll reply to both your posts together as the second is a direct follow-on from the first.

Certainly worth keeping notes on this. But more than that, if you have any inkling of what it might relate to -- meaning in what region of the world, if possible -- then please let us know. As I've said before, this is an "experimental" thread so there's no harm in being wrong.

Best regards,

Mike

Hi Mike. The only time i've ever really been able to hear a difference was when i got a few rings for the Chile EQ months ago. I normally get low-high-low rings. That Chilean one was all low tone from start to finish.

The hearing going out the other day was weird, that has never happened to me before coupled with that stabbing ear pain in my other ear that lasted only a minute. I could only guess that it was maybe a tone so low that i couldn't hear it after my hearing went out??? Which to me would mean pretty far North/South of my location in Texas. That's only a guess though. 99% of the tones i hear are low-high-low


I haven't checked the news yet to see if anything ever happened.

Pain in the bottom of both my feet, this is new and sudden, all over body, muscular pain, loud shrill ringing in my ears. Pressure in my head as well.

reply to post by oldgoat

If what you sensed was precursory, it's quite possible that it could be a period of days before the connected event actually occurs.

Right now, there are several areas of serious concern for those who are watching things fairly closely:

Indonesia: Java and Sumatra west coastal regions. Besides the Merapi volcano's eruption in Indonesia, eight other volcanoes along the western Indonesian subduction zone region have now had their status raised to level II alert, meaning that the experts see signs of possible eruptions in the near future. (Alert III indicates eruption imminent.) This is very bad news. Also, Merapi's explosive eruptions have gone counter to its "quieter" ones of the past century or so and are more like the ones it had in centuries prior. Some reports suggest that the mag 7.7 quake in the region was the possible "trigger" for Merapi, even though the quake's epicenter was some distance away. (Plate subduction is known to both build volcanoes and cause them to "re-awaken".

The Toba supervolcano has been producing some odd seismic traces that could indicate harmonic tremors. (Note that I said "could be". We have some knowledgeable members who are keeping a close watch on this and analyzing the seismograph traces.) Such harmonic temors are often strong indicators of an impending eruption, and as Toba is the world's largest supervolcano (ie even bigger than Yellowstone) then we really don't want to see it erupt like it did about 73,000 years ago.

Even without considering Toba's potential effects, because of the interactive nature of subduction zones and volcanoes, if there are several new volcanic eruptions along that subduction zone then more, major quakes could be in the offing.

Russia: two volcanoes have erupted in Russia and they could be a worry if they continue to do so.

PNW: the Pacific North-west region off the USA and Canada has been rather quiet recently. Even the usual smaller (mag 3 to 4) quakes off Eugene and places north at the Juan de Fuca plate junctions have been practically absent for some days now. There've been a couple but overall, the place is a bit too quiet for my liking.

This is always a region we should be looking at because the Juan de Fuca subduction zone is quite capable of producing a magnitude 9-plus quake when it finally unlocks and moves. It has done so in the past, and the zone's close proximity to the coast off Oregon, Wash, and also around and to the north of Vancouver Island mean that when it does finally let go again the results could be devastating. To use an analogy, such a quake there would make California's so-called next "big one" look like a minor car park fender-bender versus a Nascar turn three 20-car pileup at Daytona.

So, we have to keep a very watchful eye on that.

Hawaii: Mr Lee has posted a prediction related to Hawaii in this thread. He has today refined this to give more specific details. As his latest post is in another thread I'm linking to it here. Again, this is about volcanic activity, but as volcanics and tectonics are often interlinked I thought it best to mention it so members can see his prediction themselves.

Other regions: as always, there is Alaska. It's had huge quakes before. Then there's Chile, but we're hoping Chile will quieten down for a while as it's had some big jolts lately. (Hoping won't help much though. You ca never tell with things like this.) There's also the New Madrid fault region in the USA, which last had a couple of major (mag 8) quakes almost exactly 200 years ago. Similar quakes in that region now could cost many lives and leave tens of thousands homeless. Also, there is the problem of New Zealand, as it has a major fault line running right smack through it.

There are other regions, but that's enough to be going on with. For me, the greatest worry is the PNW Juan de Fuca fault zone, simply because it's now been over 310 years since it last let go big-time, and so people there are not really prepared for it.

The good news is that things could simply quieten down again. Tragically, the recent and ongoing events in Indonesia have killed people, but things could have been far worse. We can hope that nothing major is in the offing in the next few days, but the bad news is that sooner or later, there will be another devastating event somewhere. The places I've mentioned are high on the but they are by no means the only ones. It could also happen that an area that's been quiet for a long time might "wake up". For example, there is a fault line off the coast of Portugal that's capable of producing massive quakes, but which has been quiet for many years.

If we can do anything to try and identify where the next major event might be then our efforts are well worth our time.

Mike

Seems like lots happen when you are away for a week with no computer and you don't watch TV news.

This is about the fourth day that just about everything hurts on me this is usually not normal but I can't go by my body it's old.

I don't know what to think. I don't think one super volcano will go off but instead several smaller will go at same time to make it less dangerous....... know that sounds stupid.

I think people need to watch the skies for UFO activity they will usually show themselves near volcano areas when something is in the makings.

Mike what is the name of that map that shows the opposite of a area. it know it starts with an A

reply to post by JustMike


Great info, i keep forgetting to check this thread more often. I'm used to going a few days inbetween posts


That being said, I just had my first legit ear ring in a while a few seconds ago. This time it was in my left ear and high pitched, but barely audible. It included the normal loss of hearing in that ear before the actual ring also

124 am I am certian that the rush of feeling I just had were significant, so I will post them:

Strong wind sounds in my ears, followed by deep tones and pulsing tones (pulsing is not the norm for me)

I am suddenly very clumsy, dropped my pen three times in a row, also slight blurred vision.