Hi All,

I've been watching some circulation around the net lately about programming every conceivable earthquake precursor/trigger and putting the data into computer programs, with the expectation that in a heart-beat the matter of earthquake prediction will be resolved. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was that easy?

But I believe most of the members of this forum would agree with me, it's not so easy, whether you indulge in computer programming or not. The problem with this type of suggested resolution is that it lacks human interaction. You know, where common sense leads the way, added with some good solid science and a touch of inspiration.

There is no single method that I am presently aware of which makes its mark known each and every time, but there is progress underway. It's subtle, not dramatic and is a slow process, but nothing truly good that stands the test of time comes along without some hard work involved. So I find myself in a state of bewilderment when I see folks wanting to throw so much together, hoping for one single answer from a computer program. It seems more difficult to me than taking one person at a time and giving them some floor space and let the hands pass round until each of the best contributors adds a useful component to the mixture.

The only problem with the round table discussion is that you can't bring to much brilliance into one small space without expecting an explosion. But just for the sake of discussion, with what we do know about people who are gifted in earthquake prediction we should ask if these joint methodologies could make a program work? Frankly, I don't think so and this is why:

First and foremost, there are thousands upon thousands of earthquake faults all over the planet and somehow we would have to expect the group to focus on say less than twenty of them. As each fault has its own earthquake triggering mechanism or known fault signature, we would then have to ask would this joint effort produce any results?

So let us imagine that we took the work of Jim Berkland with his Moon and Tide Syzygy, add to it Solar Flares, B-Value, Z-Value, ELF signals, make educated guesses on earthquake clustering, add Far Field Aftershocks, heavy rain, no rain, strange anomalies and anything else you can think of and then ask, of these; would any one of them have proven results in a singular method, or would a joint effort produce better results? I doubt this strange brew would do any better than Don with his onion and garlic sandwiches and his Corona beer.

My conclusion: We aren't there yet. It may be another twenty years until we are there, but the only problem is once we arrive, what happens next? Who wants to step out into the limelight and say "By Golly, We've Got It."and live through the first false alarm and find folks interested in listening through the next round. This is where the real fire works will emerge.

So I will leave this discussion with a question. Is programming the answer?

Petra