Before the Anza Quake of October 30th, 2001 last year I had a good track record at work of predicting quakes based upon the behavior of microquake activity on the Elsinore Fault. It turned out that the Elsinore is "squeeky" or has a high coefficient of friction, and gives up strain in small jerks. After watching the fault for over 4 years, I was able to successfully predict the Hector Mines quake of Oct 1999 and the Hollywood quake at the north end of the Elsinore. But after the Anza quake, things totally changed in southern CA as far as quake patterns and I was no longer able to "predict" quakes.

It was then that I decided to get involved into the study of CA quakes more earnestly and what factors drive the quakes. I have to say, categorically, based upon the last 11 months of study, that quakes in CA are a lot more complex than anyone imagines and that many factors are in play that act to trigger them. While we can model quake behavior, such as the classical differntial equations "spring and rebound" model, just limiting ourselves to physical motion and stress build up is not the whole story.

Using electromagnetic equipment that picks up the magnetic fields, I've seen stress transfer across small plate blocks, such as the transfer of stress from the Elsinore, near Palomar Mountain, transferred almost due north into the northern San Jacinto Fault zone. A later study of a quake vs depth chart shows indeed that the exact zone has a network or web of deep quake activity (as compared with other CA quake depths)

I've seen resonances develop that spread across locations, and these resonances are discernable from the USGS's own broadband seismographs, particular on the BHZ channels. No one has yet explained why these resonances are there, nor exactly what they mean. Some locations are more susceptible than others to this oscillatory activity.

The current waveforms visible on the southern CA digital broadbands almost beggars description, but as an electronics engineer, I can assure you that much captured waveform data is not mechanical movement. It is electromagnetic field related.

Having said all this, the present theories of earthquakes is shabby and current instrumentation shows how shabby it is. We need to rethink and be willing to go outside the box, if headway is to be made today. At least we can quit ignoring the instruments and calling it "random electronic noise"