You know, sometimes you can miss the forest by looking too closely at the trees -
happens all the time to us "specialists". I wanted to say a word or two about the
swarm of events of Ml>=2.9 in Northern California today so when the Parkfield earthquake
hit a few minutes ago, it seemed like the right time to do it.
Don in Hollister, as we all know has developed some technique that allows at least
a glimpse of what is to come seismically. In this case we analyze his predictions
one by one as if we were analyzing trees for fungal rot, while somehow ignoring
the rotting forest around us.
Don produced a series of earthquake forecast last week for the region of Northern
California for this week. These involved three general areas - the region around
Markleeville, Clear Lake/Geysers and Parkfield/Coalinga. Whatever the exact
specifics of the forecasts, I wanted to point out that earthquakes of Ml>=3 have
now occurred in the last day in all three of these areas - that is the forest.
Following are the earthquakes of Ml>=3 which have occurred today in northern
California starting with the latest near Parkfield. I think this is quite a remarkable
achievement for Don and the board should share in this with him - so have a
Corona or Moosehead chaser tonight Don - and Petra cook up one of those
world-famous meals for him and send me the bill. We should all celebrate
achievements like this - just months ago there was question whether any earthquakes
could be predicted, now the question is becoming which earthquakes CANNOT
be predicted.

Today's earthquakes of Ml>=2.9 in Northern and Central California

Clear Lake/Geysers

MAP 3.1 2001/10/30 11:38:34 38.771N 122.732W 2.5 7 km ( 4 mi) ESE of The Geysers, CA

MAP 3.0 2001/10/30 13:07:43 38.838N 122.777W 2.3 5 km ( 3 mi) NNE of The Geysers, CA

Markleeville Area

MAP 3.0 2001/10/29 20:43:18 39.306N 119.971W 6.5 9 km ( 5 mi) NNE of Kings Beach, CA
MAP 3.0 2001/10/30 13:16:17 40.312N 118.851W 15.0 35 km (22 mi) WNW of Lovelock, NV

Parkfield/Coalinga

map 2.9 2001/10/30 17:46:01 35.798N 120.347W 10.6 14 km ( 8 mi) SE of Parkfield, CA
Two earthquakes also occurred nearer Don's expected epicenter earlier

map 2.5 2001/10/29 18:33:18 36.532N 120.603W 18.3 14 km ( 9 mi) NNE of New Idria, CA

map 2.3 2001/10/28 04:41:40 36.373N 120.417W 9.5 23 km (15 mi) ESE of New Idria, CA

And finally, there was the Mammoth Lakes event earlier this week followed by the Tonopah
Junction earthquake today - also on Don's short list

map 2.9 2001/10/24 15:32:18 37.437N 118.852W 7.5 21 km (13 mi) SW of Toms Place, CA
map 2.9 2001/10/24 20:33:20 37.540N 118.424W 6.5 20 km (12 mi) N of Bishop, CA
map 2.6 2001/10/29 19:28:04 37.842N 118.111W 0.0 47 km (29 mi) S of Tonopah Junction, NV

• California/Nevada earthquakes