Hi 2 Cents,

The nods occur before earthquakes and can happen at any time of the day or night. You simply get the feeling that its impossible to stay awake, so you want to nod off to sleep. When this happened to me I was wide awake prior and had no reason in the world to feel like sleep was necessary.

Yes, I can hear 5.0 or greater quakes, but not in close proximity to my location. If I could hear them I wouldn't have any hearing left afterward as the sound would be closer to a blast than a tone, so instead of hearing I perceive the experience by another physical manisfestation, like the nods or headaches to name two.

I had a marvelous sailing vacation. One of my early experiences I enjoyed very much was getting into bed at night and feeling the ship rocking me to sleep and looking out the window and seeing a star studded sky. Out there, no lights are out to bar ones way in observing the skies. To bad the meteor shower was last week.

I got a terrific field study out of this vacation which I never expected and I'll be writing a piece on the geology of Ensenada for my January 2002 issue. We also have the AGU convention coming up mid December so Don and I will both be busy attending lectures and sharing some of what we will learn here and later on the web site. Thus January I'm sure will need some expanded space.

I would like to encourage our readers here to become members of the AGU. The annual membership fee is $30.00. It entitles you to a monthly news magazine and substantially reduced costs when attending AGU events.

Like Martha Stewart says, "It's a good thing."

Petra