Good Morning EQF,

Thank you for generously sharing your data log with us. I appreciated the opportunity to review it in detail and though it is outdated material, not being in the Year 2002 it gives us the ability to see how you have disseminated the data. There are some problems with your assumptions though.

The first being that the data catalogs you are using are not normally accepted because they have proven to be inaccurate. Using USGS material or NEIC is more in keeping with the standard.

In matching earthquakes with ear tones, one must develop a formula which can explain why a particular ear tone matches with a given resulting earthquake. This can be done in a few different ways, such as, the ear tone person recognizes the sound as being familiar with a place they have repeatedly heard the same sound emanating from, or a specific mileage calculation from the ear tone receiver to the epicenter of the following quake.

Your statement that you do not live in California and therefore your ear tones must be global, rather than in the USA I believe to be a problem in verification because you have not set a standard by which this hypothesis would apply.

As I mentioned the other day, a 30 day window for an ear tone match extends well beyond the accepted norm or this type of precursor in most cases. There are a few which do fall into this category, however, they are few and far between. The believability of matches with an extremely long window leaves ear tone precursory data suspect at best.

I do know of some scientists who have worked with ear tone subjects and their analysis after a full year of data collection has proven to be no better than random chance. I am delighted that these scientists gave the issue some merit and examined the data with an open mind and were willing to give it some consideration.

There are two suggestions I would like to make in regard to your format of the data presented; do not use abbreviations, make the material extremely easy to examine and secondly, create a plot map which shows the expected earthquake location and the resulting earthquake match which occurs. This type of arrangement would benefit everyone. In other words, if the ear tone person says it should arrive in 29 Palms and it shows up in Ocotillo Wells, then you know how far off the location is from the expected epicenter. In time of course, if one hears the same sound repeatedly and 29 Palms continues to be the match, then you know the probability is far higher than for a single sound, only heard once.

In my case I have a map and I know when I have an ear tone a range on the map where the epicenter of the future quake should arrive by counting the seconds which equate to a specific mileage factor. Choosing the place on the map requires the knowledge of the geological make-up of the area before I can place a location to match the sound. The sound of the tone tells me which fault this earthquake is most likely to occur on.

Again, I would like to express my thanks to you for presenting the data and allowing us to examine your method of sorting out the material received. In ear tone research, nothing is perfect, and don't I know that all too well. I keep saying, "it needs work."

Petra