Hi Don:

Very interesting.

It appears I mis-spoke and may have been a little "harsh" in decribing the tectonics-driven paradigmers in there attempt to explain the observations.

A tectonics-driven point of view may likely produce (many?) speculations which have varying levels of acceptance...reducing the liklihood of "feeling like one is banging there head against the wall" (in trying to match theory to observed data).

I'm suggesting that the facts of:
1)the abnormalities in the form of unusual swarms at two different time periods (2001 & 1980's), &
2) unusual temporal stats, &
3)the presence/proximity of the CGL
suggest that "losing the tectonics perspective" in attempting to create a theory to explain the observed data may lead to new directions which may have a better chance of "cracking the problem" open.

This is not to say that the tectonics crowd hasn't done a good job in attempting to resolve (this given their perspective / point of view).

==> To the extent that "answers" are accepted to explain the phenomena this drives or fails to drive the hunt for other approaches to solving the problem (or coming up with an explanation / theory that does a better job across the board of explaning all of the data).

Some definitions of "anomaly" may be that "current theory doesn't explain it too well"
versus "that the 'anomaly' is 'mother nature' and it's the theory that must 'catch up'".

Just a couple of more thoughts.