Puzzling results
#1
Quote:Roger said:

Since certain prediction ideas involve triggering at
special distances I decided to look into it.

I wrote a program which looks at all mag 7.5 quakes as
main shocks (large enough for distance triggering) and
mag 6+ as possible triggered quakes.

The program finds a mag 7.5 quake, then calculates the
distance to all subsequent quakes within a year. These
are added to an array of 1 degree bins from 0 to 179
degrees.

This continues until no more main quakes are found.
The array sums are then printed to a file for
examination.

I expected only minor differences in the counts but
such was not the case. For example there were no quakes
in the degrees from 0 to 38 but 128 in the 39 degree
bin. The largest count of 1520 was at 127 degrees and
there were none farther than 163 degrees.

I have no explanation for this. Anybody have any ideas?

Hi Roger. Answering your question from elsewhere.

Given a random distribution I would expect a bell curve centered on 90 degrees. However, earthquake locations are not distributed randomly. They cluster along plate boundaries.

Since most large quakes occur around the Pacific, and looking at a globe you could probably fit a circular ring around the ocean that would cover most of the Ring of Fire, I have a hunch that 127 degrees is close to a distance that would include a larger number of these quakes thus moving the hump from 90.

Brian





Signing of Skywise Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?
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#2
(11-16-2015, 02:48 AM)Skywise Wrote:
Quote:Roger, You looked at this a decade or more ago, related to Lowell Whiteside's claim of certain angular distances. I don't think you did exactly what Lowell had done, but found nothing, except maybe a few extra quakes near the edge of the shadow zone (104 deg or something???). I'm not quite sure what you just did, but I suggest you double -check it carefully, and maybe post more detail here so we can help you look for logical breaks.

Nice night sky here: Venus, Mars, Jupiter lined up before dawn in E and SE.

Chris




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#3
(11-16-2015, 02:48 AM)Skywise Wrote: Hi Roger. Answering your question from elsewhere.

Given a random distribution I would expect a bell curve centered on 90 degrees. However, earthquake locations are not distributed randomly. They cluster along plate boundaries.

Since most large quakes occur around the Pacific, and looking at a globe you could probably fit a circular ring around the ocean that would cover most of the Ring of Fire, I have a hunch that 127 degrees is close to a distance that would include a larger number of these quakes thus moving the hump from 90.

Brian

AHA!

You're right. I had expected a random distribution, not taking the effects of distance into account. 3-D visualization is not one of my strong points.

On a globe, 90 degrees is the largest radius possible so if quakes were uniformly distributed there would be a bell curve centered on 90 degrees.

Since quakes are not uniformly distributed, different peak locations are to be expected and it appears that 127, 128 and 161 are 3 of the best by a large margin.

The lack of anything closer than 39 degrees would indicate an error. I'll look into that.

Demonstrating it will be difficult. Circles on a map will quickly obscure everything.

Any suggestions?

Roger




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#4
(11-16-2015, 10:50 AM)Island Chris Wrote:
Quote:Roger, You looked at this a decade or more ago, related to Lowell Whiteside's claim of certain angular distances. I don't think you did exactly what Lowell had done, but found nothing, except maybe a few extra quakes near the edge of the shadow zone (104 deg or something???). I'm not quite sure what you just did, but I suggest you double -check it carefully, and maybe post more detail here so we can help you look for logical breaks.

Nice night sky here: Venus, Mars, Jupiter lined up before dawn in E and SE.

Chris

Yes I did. This current program relates to Amit Dave's predictions which are based on similar ideas.

I don't know how to describe the program logic any better than I already did but it does seem the have a bug or two somewhere.

Roger




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#5
(11-16-2015, 03:21 PM)Roger Hunter Wrote: Yes I did. This current program relates to Amit Dave's predictions which are based on similar ideas.

I don't know how to describe the program logic any better than I already did but it does seem the have a bug or two somewhere.

Roger

I want to show that 127/128 degrees is due to the size of the ring of fire as Brian suggested.

The only thing I can think of is a map for each main quake with the rings and quakes plotted.
This may work visually but doesn't give anything for numerical analysis.

Anyone have a better idea?

Roger




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#6
(11-17-2015, 02:41 AM)Roger Hunter Wrote:
(11-16-2015, 03:21 PM)Roger Hunter Wrote: Yes I did. This current program relates to Amit Dave's predictions which are based on similar ideas.

I don't know how to describe the program logic any better than I already did but it does seem the have a bug or two somewhere.

Roger

I want to show that 127/128 degrees is due to the size of the ring of fire as Brian suggested.

The only thing I can think of is a map for each main quake with the rings and quakes plotted.
This may work visually but doesn't give anything for numerical analysis.

Anyone have a better idea?

Roger

Found the error.

In counting all quakes for a year I was counting the same quakes repeatedly since mag 7.5+ quakes happen frequently.

I changed the program to restart at each new main quake and now the numbers are as expected. The largest number is at 0 degrees. The next largest is at 62 degrees and they taper off from there.

I tried maps but just can't get the code right. I'm trying to plot a Mercator projection centered on the main quake's longitude but it just isn't working.

Getting old I guess....

Roger




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