Earthquake Forecasting Update – February 5, 2013

A good part of my time for more than a month has been devoted to helping a friend survive a life threatening heart condition. In fact, just last week his heart completely stopped beating while I was standing only a few feet away. Luckily this was in the intensive care room of a hospital. And what followed was just like on television. Within 30 seconds there were more than a dozen nurses and doctors in the room. CPR was immediately started. The only difference with the TV version is that they then simply placed a large patch on his chest. And a computer controlled how the shocks were delivered. They didn’t use separate paddles with increasing voltages like on TV. A few minutes after he came back to life all the doctors and nurses had drifted away and it was completely quiet again. He has finally been stabilized after a lengthy hospital stay and is expected to make a full recovery.

During those times of the day when my close friends are not attempting to head off into eternity I am working on three earthquake forecasting efforts.

The first is the continuous one that involves constant improvements to my earthquake forecasting computer programs. They are getting quite sophisticated.

The second one involves an intensive effort to get governments around the world, especially the U.S., to stop listening to bad advice and finally grasp the reality that some of our earthquakes can actually be accurately predicted. If the present version of that effort is successful then the U.S. will have to make some important decisions regarding this subject matter within a few weeks.

The third effort involves developing a better understanding of how the EM Signals that I am working with are being generated.

There appear to be definite links with approaching earthquakes and active solar storms. However, there is another major component (actually more than one) that is still something of a mystery.

Strong EM Signals are frequently being generated at the same time that Pavel Kalenda’s ground tilt sensors detect some type of major event in the fault zones they are monitoring. And at this time we, or at least I, don’t really understand what those events are. My best present guess is that this involves the fault zone abruptly getting to the point where its rock layers can no longer simply continue to “bend” in response to the gradual movement of the tectonic plates on either side of the fault zone. And that event appears as an abrupt change in the signals that Pavel’s sensors are detecting. The ground down in the mines where his sensors are located starts to tilt in one direction or the other. And strong EM Signals are also frequently generated at those times.

The EM Signals indicate that this sequence of events at times takes place during a several hour period of time. Pavel’s sensors are probably not able to focus in on such short time periods. And the individual EM Signals might last only 20 second.

Present theories are that at the times the EM Signals are generated there is a major and short lived change in the conductivity of the fault zone rock layers. And any solar storm energy that is present at that time drains into the fault zone like lightning hitting a tree quickly resulting in the EM Signals being generated.

Or, piezoelectric type processes in the fault zone cause solar storm related Total Electron Content type concentrations in the ionosphere to generate the EM Signals.

In any case, the signals are good indicators of approaching seismic activity. They are frequently generated when there is a strong solar storm. And when there is no solar storm activity such as during the past month or so, few or no strong EM Signals are generated even if a powerful earthquake is approaching.

Further research and discussions should shed more light on the links between those strong EM Signals and the signals that Pavel is working with.

Finally, a tremendous number of low intensity EM Signals have been detected in the past few day, but no strong signals. It will take me a while longer to process all of those signals and update my forecasting program Web page.

The low intensity signals last only about 0.25 seconds and are presently believed to be associated with microfracturs in fault zones where powerful earthquakes are getting ready to occur, usually in the Indonesia and Japan areas.

These are personal opinions.