An Experiment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction

How about this.

Magnitude-4.1 quake shakes central California


HOLLISTER, Calif. — Geologists say central California has been shaken by an earthquake measuring magnitude-4.1, strong enough to be noticed but without producing any reports of damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the Sunday morning temblor was centered eight miles south of the unincorporated town of Tres Pinos, about 97 miles south of San Francisco.

It was focused at about four miles beneath the surface.

A dispatcher for the San Benito County sheriff's office said the quake was felt, but no one complained of any damage or injuries.

reply to post by JustMike

Back in the above post on Dec 19, I said:

I am expecting a quake in this region of at least a magnitude 5.0 but more likely in the 6.0 range, with a time window within the next three days. The most likely region is actually in the Nth Kuril Islands, in the circle I've added to the map below, at approx 153E, 47N, but I have to state that historically, the fault region NE of here within the Kamchatka region itself is known to be unstable and could be affected.

Today Dec 22 (ie three days after I made this prediction) there was a mag 5.0 quake in the Kuril Islands. The USGS data page is below:



This quake's coordinates of 46.528°N, 152.582°E are within half a degree of what I stated as the "target area" (as I call it.)

The map I posted with the original prediction on Dec 19 (which is in that post) and today's map from USGS showing the quake's location are reproduced below for anyone to compare:

Original map of predicted area, posted Dec 19:



Today's USGS map showing the quake:



(Note the time shown is the time for the map page, which is updated regularly, and not the time of the quake itself.)

(All images from USGS. The only alteration by myself is the inclusion of the red circle on the map which was originally posted for the Dec 19 prediction. Images reproduced for informational and educational purposes.)

I think I can claim this prediction as a "hit".

reply to post by JustMike


gOOD Morning Mike, I was just getting ready to post the same link you provided based on your prediction. Seems like a hit to me, nice work!!!

there is a lot of weirdness with latitudes, etc, going on now all around the planet... could be a very eventful day

Excellent hit, JustMike. Right on the money. It doesn't get any better than that.

Magnitude 4.8 - LA PAZ, BOLIVIA
2008 December 22 13:52:40 UTC


[edit on 12/22/08 by kattraxx]

Thanks for the positive feedback

Some readers might be interested to know a bit more about the process I used to make the Kuril Islands/Kamchatka region prediction on Dec 19, so I’ll give a summary here.

Now people can either take it or leave it, but my methods generally involve a combination of the rather boring/scientific and the more esoteric and that was the case this time. Back on Dec 18, my attention was drawn to the Kuril Islands/Kamchatka region, which is why in this post that I made on Dec 18 at 10.08 pm (UTC) I said:

Please also keep an eye on the Kamchatka region. I will probably post specific details tomorrow. (ie in about 12 hours from now.)

What I meant by this was that I was expecting something that would indicate an upcoming quake in the Kurils/Kamchatka region. The following morning (Dec 19) I checked the USGS maps as usual and saw that there had just been a mag 5.9 quake on the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which occurred at 8:31 am (UTC). The data page for this quake is shown below:


(Original image from USGS. Image reproduced for informational and educational purposes only.)

This was the “something” that I had been expecting and which led me to make the initial “advisory” post on Dec 18 -- about 9 ½ hours before this quake occurred. So, that is the “esoteric” side, but in this case the esoteric component wasn’t really all that important, it’s more a matter of curiosity that I even posted it I suppose.

Now I wouldn’t forgive anyone if you’re scratching your head and wondering how on Earth a quake on the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge could be any kind of indicator for a quake in the Kamchatka/Kuril Islands region, but the answer is very simple. I had previously noticed that it was not uncommon for Mid-Atlantic ridge quakes to be followed by others in very specific regions of the world, namely in places almost exactly 180 degrees’ longitude away and in roughly the same latitude. (Latitude seems to vary more than longitude in these cases, as far as I’ve observed.)

The process of one quake causing another at a great distance is acknowledged by scientists and is called “dynamic triggering”. This article gives a few details. However, I don’t see much evidence of scientists making predictions based upon this phenomenon. I guess it could be because reputations could be at stake, but as I have no reputation anyway then I don’t mind making predictions. Also, in that article they only say that “large quakes can trigger smaller tremors”. While that may generally be true, I am thinking that the major ridges (especially the Mid-Atlantic) might be capable of much more than just setting off some “tremors”. At least, that’s what I’ve observed -- but granted, a lot more research is needed.

Getting back to this prediction method: generally, there are two caveats to all this. First, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake has to be fairly significant (getting up around a mag 6 or higher) for there to be a follow-on quake at around 180 deg long away (and a similar latitude), and second, the region that is half-way round the world usually needs to be one that historically has a fair degree of seismicity. (ie It lies on or near a major fault.)

So, because this Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake on Dec 19 was a 5.9 (hence around the right amount of energy), and as 180 degrees’ longitude away (at around 47 N latitude) places us in the Kuril Islands (bordering Kamchatka), I felt able to make the prediction as I did.

As it happens, the quake in the Kurils today was located 179.873 deg longitude away from the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake of Dec 19 (or 180.127 deg if you go the other direction), and the difference in latitude was only 0.421 degrees. Here is a map to illustrate:


(Original image from USGS. Additional data placed on the image by the author of this post. Image reproduced for informational and educational purposes only.)

It’s important to note that this method of prediction is not guraranteed to produce results every time. However, it does serve to illustrate what’s possible and perhaps with more detailed research it could be turned into a fairly reliable method. I am coming to the belief that places like the Mid-Atlantic ridge have effects far beyond what is are generally acknowledged and further, I believe that they should be studied much more closely.

Just to finish I guess I should make it clear that the method given here was not what I used for my successful predictions for Japan, off-coast Oregon, Alaska, the Philippines region, off the coast of Taiwan (and I think some others that I’ve forgotten! ) which are logged in this thread. While I looked at certain indicators for all those predictions, the activities of the various ridges were not part of the process.

But this post is long enough already so I’ll save that for another day.

Mike

Edited to correct detail on map.

[edit on 22/12/08 by JustMike]

Grover hot springs, a new little swarm.... a bit southeast of here.

MAP 1.6 2008/12/22 16:53:29 38.732 -119.609 12.0 17 km ( 11 mi) ENE of Markleeville, CA
MAP 1.9 2008/12/22 16:51:15 38.721 -119.617 0.0 16 km ( 10 mi) ENE of Markleeville, CA
MAP 2.9 2008/12/22 16:50:06 38.721 -119.627 0.8 15 km ( 9 mi) ENE of Markleeville, CA
(From the USGS web site)

And also in the Honey and Davis Lakes area, Lassen County, CA, there's activity. We know about the Trona swarm (hot springs), The Geysers in N. California that have been very active, the 4.1 near Pinnacles/Tres Pinos hot springs yesterday. And the 3.0 in greater Los Angeles was in Piru, CA, also hot springs there.

Quite a few little swarms in California, and all where there are hot springs, or a known caldera, like Long Valley.

In Nevada, there's a more spread out swarm around Beatty, home of Bailey hot springs. And not forgetting NW Reno here, home of Lawton hot springs, and still a few micros going on around Lake Tahoe.

There's usually activity around some of these areas, but lately it seems the activity has picked up and increased in intensity. And a few new areas are getting active, like Markleeville.

reply to post by kattraxx

Hi Kat,

as these swarms are you mentioned are located near hot springs, has there been any official comment or opinion that they could be magma-related, or are the experts still saying nothing on that score?

reply to post by JustMike


I haven't heard anything, or managed to find any comments doing a search. I know in California, a lot of people pay attention to The Geysers, and if activity there increases, they are a bit more on guard. Here is an interesting article.

Detection of Hydrothermal Precursors to Large Northern California Earthquakes

Paul G. Silver 1 and Nathalie J. Valette-Silver 2
1 Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015
2 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20741

During the period 1973 to 1991 the interval between eruptions from a periodic geyser in Northern California exhibited precursory variations 1 to 3 days before the three largest earthquakes within a 250-kilometer radius of the geyser. These include the magnitude 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake of 18 October 1989 for which a similar preseismic signal was recorded by a strainmeter located halfway between the geyser and the earthquake. These data show that at least some earthquakes possess observable precursors, one of the prerequisites for successful earthquake prediction. All three earthquakes were further than 130 kilometers from the geyser, suggesting that precursors might be more easily found around rather than within the ultimate rupture zone of large California earthquakes.

www.sciencemag.org...

Here it's explained in laymen's terms, in a news article.

query.nytimes.com...

It's kind of funny, really... the scientists were all excited about it, like it was something new, when in reality, Californians knew this all along.

From The Geysers web page: www.oldfaithfulgeyser.com...

Water for the Old Faithful Geyser of California comes from an underground river. When this water flows over the hot molten magma deep in the earth, it boils and expands and is collected in large cavities. Under tremendous pressure from the heat, and assisted by a constriction of the passage upward, the superheated water is forced through the fissures and fractures and erupts with an outpouring of steam followed by a fulmination of hot dancing water.

Under normal conditions, the water, the heat and the underground structure all remain constant and for this reason Old Faithful erupts regularly. Conditions which cause deviations from the normal pattern seem to relate to earthquakes. The Old Faithful Geyser of California is proving itself a predictor of quakes.

[edit on 12/22/08 by kattraxx]

reply to post by kattraxx

Excellent info, Kat! That's the sort of stuff we need to see: evidence that the scientific community is taking quake prediction a lot more seriously -- and realistically. It's very interesting that the precursors they noted related to quakes at such a distance. Not totally unsurprising, of course, but interesting.

I wish the managers at The Geysers in Calistoga, CA would post the schedule of the geyser's eruptions on their web site, so we would know when there are significant changes that might foretell a large seismic event. But they don't.

reply to post by kattraxx

Hi Kat, seems like the "Old Faithful" geyser normally erupts about every thirty minutes, but:

From two days to two weeks prior to an earthquake, the Old Faithful Geyser of California gives warning by delaying its regular performance from the average thirty minutes to a longer interval. During this prolonged interval, it may send up "splits," small eruptions to no more than two or three feet in height, every few minutes. Finally, after the long delay, a 60-foot column of water and steam shoots upward.

(From the information page of Old Faithful Geyser.com. Website here.)

More info about the quake precursors on the above site...

Edit to add: Kat has posted the main page already. The one I give is just the info page on the same site. But as Kat says, there's no hard data on the eruptions available from there, which would be very useful if they'd post it.


[edit on 22/12/08 by JustMike]

Magnitude 5.4 - SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
2008 December 20 22:13:47 UTC

From the 20th, but I just received the USGS email notification.

MAP 5.4 2008/12/20 22:13:47 -31.229 -13.471 10.0 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

MAP 5.7 2008/12/20 21:05:17 -31.228 -13.406 10.0 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

[edit on 12/22/08 by kattraxx]

reply to post by kattraxx

Maybe USGS sent out the email notifications late because of...errm....because of the Christmas mail backlog???

But at least the quakes appeared on the maps, so we can be thankful for small mercies. I remember seeing them in orange on the world map. Well, one of them anyway. It's tricky because they're so close together that one "quakesquare" virtually obscures the other.

Hi all,

I need to make a slight but important correction to something I said in this post yesterday. I wrote:

Getting back to this prediction method: generally, there are two caveats to all this. First, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake has to be fairly significant (getting up around a mag 6 or higher) for there to be a follow-on quake at around 180 deg long away (and a similar latitude), and second, the region that is half-way round the world usually needs to be one that historically has a fair degree of seismicity. (ie It lies on or near a major fault.)

Where I said "up around a mag 6 or higher" I meant to say "up around a mag 5 or higher". Sorry about that. Errare humanum est and all that... Key thing here is that if there's a Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake under mag 5.0, I generally don't take a lot of notice of it. If there were to be a whole bunch of them within a short time interval in one pretty well-defined smaller region, then they might be worth considering; however, as it takes around 30 mag 4.0 quakes to equal the energy release of one mag 5.0, it would have to be a pretty big bunch of mag four (or lower) quakes to have any effect elsewhere... I think!

Mike

Originally posted by JustMike
Thanks for the positive feedback

Some readers might be interested to know a bit more about the process I used to make the Kuril Islands/Kamchatka region prediction on Dec 19, so I’ll give a summary here.

Now people can either take it or leave it, but my methods generally involve a combination of the rather boring/scientific and the more esoteric and that was the case this time. Back on Dec 18, my attention was drawn to the Kuril Islands/Kamchatka region, which is why in this post that I made on Dec 18 at 10.08 pm (UTC) I said:

Please also keep an eye on the Kamchatka region. I will probably post specific details tomorrow. (ie in about 12 hours from now.)

What I meant by this was that I was expecting something that would indicate an upcoming quake in the Kurils/Kamchatka region. The following morning (Dec 19) I checked the USGS maps as usual and saw that there had just been a mag 5.9 quake on the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which occurred at 8:31 am (UTC). The data page for this quake is shown below:

(Original image from USGS. Image reproduced for informational and educational purposes only.)

This was the “something” that I had been expecting and which led me to make the initial “advisory” post on Dec 18 -- about 9 ½ hours before this quake occurred. So, that is the “esoteric” side, but in this case the esoteric component wasn’t really all that important, it’s more a matter of curiosity that I even posted it I suppose.

Now I wouldn’t forgive anyone if you’re scratching your head and wondering how on Earth a quake on the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge could be any kind of indicator for a quake in the Kamchatka/Kuril Islands region, but the answer is very simple. I had previously noticed that it was not uncommon for Mid-Atlantic ridge quakes to be followed by others in very specific regions of the world, namely in places almost exactly 180 degrees’ longitude away and in roughly the same latitude. (Latitude seems to vary more than longitude in these cases, as far as I’ve observed.)

The process of one quake causing another at a great distance is acknowledged by scientists and is called “dynamic triggering”. This article gives a few details. However, I don’t see much evidence of scientists making predictions based upon this phenomenon. I guess it could be because reputations could be at stake, but as I have no reputation anyway then I don’t mind making predictions. Also, in that article they only say that “large quakes can trigger smaller tremors”. While that may generally be true, I am thinking that the major ridges (especially the Mid-Atlantic) might be capable of much more than just setting off some “tremors”. At least, that’s what I’ve observed -- but granted, a lot more research is needed.

Getting back to this prediction method: generally, there are two caveats to all this. First, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake has to be fairly significant (getting up around a mag 6 or higher) for there to be a follow-on quake at around 180 deg long away (and a similar latitude), and second, the region that is half-way round the world usually needs to be one that historically has a fair degree of seismicity. (ie It lies on or near a major fault.)

So, because this Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake on Dec 19 was a 5.9 (hence around the right amount of energy), and as 180 degrees’ longitude away (at around 47 N latitude) places us in the Kuril Islands (bordering Kamchatka), I felt able to make the prediction as I did.

As it happens, the quake in the Kurils today was located 179.873 deg longitude away from the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge quake of Dec 19 (or 180.127 deg if you go the other direction), and the difference in latitude was only 0.421 degrees. Here is a map to illustrate:

(Original image from USGS. Additional data placed on the image by the author of this post. Image reproduced for informational and educational purposes only.)

It’s important to note that this method of prediction is not guraranteed to produce results every time. However, it does serve to illustrate what’s possible and perhaps with more detailed research it could be turned into a fairly reliable method. I am coming to the belief that places like the Mid-Atlantic ridge have effects far beyond what is are generally acknowledged and further, I believe that they should be studied much more closely.

Just to finish I guess I should make it clear that the method given here was not what I used for my successful predictions for Japan, off-coast Oregon, Alaska, the Philippines region, off the coast of Taiwan (and I think some others that I’ve forgotten!

) which are logged in this thread. While I looked at certain indicators for all those predictions, the activities of the various ridges were not part of the process.

But this post is long enough already so I’ll save that for another day.

Mike

Edited to correct detail on map.

[edit on 22/12/08 by JustMike]

Dude, best F'n post ever!

good work! this makes it much easier to explain (to my wife) just what we are talking about.

and you see those quakes.. almost ALL of them are a mirror image of other quakes.. to me, this post solidifies the "antipodal" theory of quakes.

I would like to see more predictions made based on this idea..

that pic of the world map (from above) shows us everything we need to know.. it's almost scary.

reply to post by pynner

Hi Pynner and thanks for your support!

Yes, there is a lot to be said for pursuing the "antipodal" concept as one method of trying to predict quakes. You know, every time time I look at the world quake maps lately, I find myself thinking "We're missing something. It's staring us in the face and we're missing it." I just wish I knew what it was, but honestly, I feel that while we probably won't find the Rosetta Stone that will decipher all the inter-relationships that make quakes happen, we -- I mean everyone who is seeking the answer, not just us here -- errrmm... we might at least be able to achieve a level of reliability that would benefit people.

I also wonder at the fact that many governments spend huge amounts of money on various forms of scientific research, but that detailed research into actually trying to crack this problem of predicting quakes receives relatively little. Now, considering that when the Juan de Fuca finally lets go it will probably be the most devastating, unforseen natural disaster that the US has ever seen (as distinct from hurricanes which can be picked up and tracked days in advance), we have to wonder about the potential benefits that could be gained by really putting a major effort in and supplying some decent funding.

I suppose it's partly that unlike the weather, which is with us all the time and throws some rough stuff at us pretty regularly, big quakes (and their tsunamis in some cases) only come along spasmodically and so it's a case of "out of sight, out of mind". Granted, there is a lot being done in terms of earthquake preparedness in the US and some other countries, but that can only go so far. An effective prediction system means an effective warning system could be put in place and that has to worth the effort. But seeing as the Tsunami warning network only got upgraded after the Asian Tsunami of Dec 2004, I have the awful feeling that the major effort will not be made until it's too late.

This is not pointing fingers at the USA, either. Many countries have quakes but very few seem to be making major efforts to find a co-ordinated and effective way to predict major seismic events of all kinds with any degree of reliability -- if at all.

Meanwhile we'll just keep plugging away...

Magnitude 4.4 - OFF THE COAST OF OREGON
2008 December 24 04:11:41 UTC

Expecting Chile to start up again before the end of the week. Have had some pretty strong precursors the past twelve hours, so probably at least 5.0. Space Cadet, what are you feeling?

Happy Holidays everyone.

Magnitude 4.0 - OFF THE COAST OF OREGON
2008 December 24 04:11:42 UTC

Magnitude 5.9 Vancouver Island!







(All images from USGS. Reproduced for informational purposes.)

There has also been a mag 4.3 which occurred at 8:42 UTC and appears to be an aftershock.

Take note that the quake was not on any of the fault lines there, but in the nth-middle section of the Juan de Fuca plate. Let us hope that this 5.9 quake will not have any serious effects... And that it is not a precursor of anything larger.

I'm hoping that members we have in this region will check in shortly.