An Experiment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction

reply to post by TMG333



What region are you in?

How far from a major quake zone/fault zone?

What percentage of your ear ringing has seemed to correlate with quakes over the last year?

Any animals in your home?

reply to post by BO XIAN

Great to see that your suggestion has resulted in some excellent input from several members. Thanks to everyone for that!

Re my comment about members not needing to add in quake data at the time they make their own, personal observation notes: there are three points of reasoning I'd like to explain as to why I said that.

The first is that not everyone will either have access to the various quake data sets available, or be able to fully interpret them. There are several good sources for data (and some pretty poor ones as well!) but even within the relibale databases there is a lot of variation in what is recorded. For the same quake, magnitudes can vary (and the type of magnitude scale used), depths, timing and location can also differ, and even what quakes get included at all has a fair range of variance: a quake posted in one data base might not even exist in another, or if it does, it may seem to be a different event.

Secondly, I can see problems if people feel the need to try and determine what quakes they feel might be affecting them. Again, while some may be able to do this quite well, others could struggle with it -- especially as there are so many quakes every day round the world and figuring what to include in or out is going to be a heck of a task. This is not to put people off, by any means. I'm just pointing out that we are going to be pretty busy!

On the other hand, I'm very supportive of people using their intuitive abilities. If a member feels that a certain quake event is very likely the one that influenced him or her, far better to say so at the time and (where possible) reference the quake via a database. I expect that for some people, such cases are likely to show a pattern of consistency that strongly supports their intuitive assertions.

Finally, especially with smaller quake events, there can be delays of several days between the time the quake occurs and it actually gets confirmed and added to various databases. Also, over a period of some days, it's not uncommon for quake data to be reviewed (sometimes repeatedly) and magnitudes can be revised upwards or downwards; some quakes can be deleted altogether when it's determined that they're a duplicate of another event or they were not quakes to start with.

In short, I'm just saying that while it's no problem if people want to note possible related quake events, it will likely be necessary to cross-correlate all of them at a later time anyway. But that's okay. We all know that this is going to take time.

About the stats side: I studied statistic methods in college as it was a compulsory subject but frankly that was decades ago and the technicalities of such methods are not my bailiwick. I have never created anything in Excell except a complete mess so I'd rather leave that to members who have a better idea of what they're doing. I can help with collating info, for sure, but turning it into numbers is something I'm not so good at, beyond the very simplest "P < 0.090" sorts of data that you'll find in many academic journal reports across a whole range of disciplines.

There are posts going right back through this thread that could provide some useful data so it might be necessary to review them all over time, rather than just recent ones. Some of the posting members are no longer active on ATS but I believe others are and they could be contacted and invited to rejoin the thread.

Finally I'd support the notion of keeping things within this thread for now. It just seems to me that we are less likely to have to deal with trolls that way. Also, it's good to have it all in one place.

Best regards,

Mike

reply to post by JustMike



Sounds good to me.

Will try and figure out how to post an Xcell spreadsheet with proposed categories/ columns.

Thanks for your meaty response.

reply to post by BO XIAN

Providing the image is under 500 KB, you can just go to TOOLS at the top of the page and then click on upload and load it directly into your own account. Then you click on the thumbnail and you'll get the image with the codes for posting here on ATS.

Much easier than the old image upload system we had. Very fast and easy to use.

Mike

reply to post by JustMike



How do I save the XCell file/page as an image . . . I'll review the columns and make one up and see what I can do.

reply to post by BO XIAN


I am very near the San Andreas fault in Southern California. As I said, ear ringing is rare in my case, usually only if I'm sick with a bad head cold or something. Yesterday was just weird and I made mention of it to my fiance because it was bothering me. Most of any symptoms I've had that I can link to any event are anxiety, upset stomach, headaches, just an overall feeling of "something is wrong". I only have one cat in the house, she's been a little wound up for days too. Very chatty, anxious about something, not wanting to eat her wet food for dinner.

reply to post by TMG333



Hmmmmmmmmm

Guess I'd better try and get the spreadsheet form up.

Be safe!

Thx thx.

reply to post by TMG333



WOULD ALL WHO EXPERIENCE PHYSIOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS they think might relate to quake stuff

PLEASE LIST THE SYMPTOMS FOR ME? I'm making the spreadshee now.

reply to post by BO XIAN

From what little I know of Excell, just set up your chart then right click on the chart border and select copy. Then open windows paint, select Edit in the paint menu, then click on paste and there it is. Then just save it and select your format. JPEG is good for here. (Not sure if this site support .BMP formats but jpegs are not a problem.)

If the chart won't copy for some reason, just hit the PrtSc key on your keyboard (usually top row next to the Insert key) to capture a screenshot, open paint and paste the screen image in. Then use the trim tool in paint, select your chart and copy it, open a new paint screen (ie blank) and paste it in and save.

That's how I often save maps and so forth when I want data that otherwise won't copy with the map's image.

Hope this helps...

Re physiological symptoms, the most common ones mentioned in the thread would be ringing in the ears (often seems left ear is more commonly mentioned than right), strange tones heard but which are not ringing, dizziness, "seismic flu" (tummy trouble of no known etiology), nausea and sometimes vomiting, headaches and also migraines, and joint pains. In the case of joint pains, they tend to be very sharp pains and again, usually cannot be linked to any activity that otherwsie might have caused them.

Then there's general unease -- a feeling of anxiety -- which again seems to occur when the person otherwise has nothing that would cause that anxiety.

There are doubtless others in the thread but I'm just mentioning some I recall that were posted.

Mike

Big quake in Mexico, some miles SSW of Mexico city. Here's the prelim data report from usgs:

Magnitude 7.6 - OAXACA, MEXICO
2012 March 20 18:02:48 UTC

Details
Maps
Tsunami

Earthquake Details

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude 7.6
Date-Time

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 18:02:48 UTC
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 12:02:48 PM at epicenter

Location 16.662°N, 98.188°W
Depth 17.5 km (10.9 miles)
Region OAXACA, MEXICO
Distances

25 km (15 miles) E (95°) from Ometepec, Guerrero, Mexico
42 km (26 miles) NNW (335°) from Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, Mexico
87 km (54 miles) SW (219°) from Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico
162 km (101 miles) WSW (255°) from Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
186 km (115 miles) E (96°) from Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 15.8 km (9.8 miles); depth +/- 6.5 km (4.0 miles)
Parameters NST=438, Nph=440, Dmin=312.8 km, Rmss=0.88 sec, Gp= 79°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source

Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID usc0008m6h

Source: USGS

Was originally posted as mag 7.9, revised to M 7.6 a few minutes later. (This sort of revision is not unusual.)

Logging this in the thread as it's a significant quake.

Mike

Well hello Mexico... =\

reply to post by JustMike



Thanks much.

Am scanning quickly from page 100 forward for such symptoms. Your list helps.

Have a spreadsheet going for humans and for animals.

Will do my usual obsessive elaborate and we can simplify later.

I'm definitely a MORE DATA IS BETTER kind of guy. LOL.

Printing your instructions off. Seems easy enough. Thx.

reply to post by JustMike


Isn't this a bit close to the parameters that bloke on youtube was predicting???

Interesting.

reply to post by JustMike


I been having symptoms for about 4 hrs now...today...started last night about 11. returned this am when I got up. My head feels like its going to explode, migraine type headache, pressure in ears with tones, unstable on my feet like when trying to stand still I go from more pressure on the ball of my feet to my heels like a rocking motion. The craving for popcorn although I haven't eaten any my 10 yo granddaughter said nana I have to have popcorn. I said why she says I don't know I just need it. Blue and gold macaws losing their chit and screaming for no apparent reason, dogs wanting out and immediately wanting back in. 2 cats can't be found although I know they are in the house hiding somewhere and won't come out. Anxiety got bad about 1130, and hasn't lessened. I don't think its over with the Mexican quake. Joints hurting pretty bad but I put that off to the rain and changes in barometric pressure. LOL and here I sit feeling like the nutbar I am waiting for the next one.

reply to post by BO XIAN

I don't know as there are so many blokes and sheilas on youtube predicting almost constant doom'n'gloom that I pay them little heed, unless one is pointed out to me that (a ) actually knows something about the subject and definitely understands magnitudes, at the very least and (b ) does not appear to be in cloud cuckoo land.

For the record I had no inkling of anything coming up of this size in Mexico. Took me completely by surprise. Just quietly, I've actually been expecting something significant over the pond (as I told you) but also I've been watching further south in the Americas -- mainly around Peru and down into Bolivia. But down there it's pretty average right now. The odd mag 5 but they get those pretty often and I don't take them as much of an indicator of anything.

Mike

I just saw those quakes in Mexico on my twitter EQ feeds. I had persistent ear ringing for days, I think I may have posted this a few days ago, but I too am taken by surprise here because it really let up about 36 hours ago. Hmmmm. Actually I am feeling better at this point with just a dull headache. And I also did not get any indications from my cats or the dogs that anything unusual was going on. Trying to figure this one out since the last larger EQ in Mexico a while back, my whole family had symptoms and my cats and doggies were going crazy.

I didn't see/feel that one coming either! Kind of disappointed.
That's the kind of snafus that make it hard to figure this stuff out!
I have moderate ear ringing that started after the quake!!! A little off balance, but I didn't get enough sleep the last two nights. Too busy reading ATS!!!

Didn't notice the cats doing anything.
Hubby stills feels yucky since a couple of days ago. Didn't get any worse, but has throbbing in his temples. Vein showing on one side. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We want our money back!!!

Nothing showed up this afternoon, but it is now??? 10 PM EST here.
One cat just went under the desk.
Hubby being cranky pants.
Can't type or text...all fumbly fingers!
I'm starving....ate a good dinner....must have sweet junk food...aaahhhhhh!!!!
WOQ

Hmmm...I just don't think Mexico is it. Somewhere else, this week. Don't know where. Maybe one more this size.

Symptoms explosion and building. Much more since after Mexico.

Peace

reply to post by lasertaglover


I agree with you for sure. Don't know where but this wasn't the one I was looking for.