This is not simply a matter of academic interest to me. I actually have a working earthquake forecasting program. You can see some of the precursor data which I use to generate forecasts on the following Web page:

Seismic Activity and Storm Data
http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/131.html

Towards the bottom of that page at the present time there is a short section which discusses how I used those data to generate that “I am watching for an earthquake in Iran or Afghanistan” note which I posted to the sci.geo.earthquakes Newsgroup on May 27, 1998.

In my opinion my forecast program does produce some useful results. And it relies in part on the existence of those sun and moon position related 10 minute duration earthquake triggering time windows. However that by itself does not explain what the force is which links the positions of the sun and the moon with earthquake occurrence times. And I myself do not presently know what that force is. About the best that I can do is refer to it as a gravity induced earthquake triggering “Pressure Wave” which travels from east to west within the Earth’s crust (actually, my theory model for that force is quite a bit more detailed).

My data have for some time also been indicating to me that some longer-term relationships must exist between the positions of the sun and the moon and earthquake triggering times. And a particularly important one appears to be expressed in multiples of about 7 days. After wondering for quite a while what it could be it now looks like it might be linked with rapid changes in Earth acceleration forces in space. I have been studying plots of strong earthquakes against the times when those changes were greatest. And although I have not done a rigorous statistical analysis of the data, it looks to me like some powerful earthquake occurrence and rapid acceleration times might be in good agreement. For one example, the recent high magnitude, destructive January 22, 2003 earthquake in Mexico occurred at a time when my data indicate to me there was a strong and abrupt change in those Earth acceleration forces.

QUESTION: An important question which I presently feel that people around the world should be asking is NOT: “How are earthquakes being triggered” or even “Can they be predicted?” Instead they should be asking why scientists are having such a difficult time answering those first two questions. I myself am not a geology professional. Yet during my free time during the past decade I have been able to develop what I believe is an operational and valuable earthquake forecasting program as well as an earthquake triggering theory model which I feel has become quite advanced.

NOTE 2 Tectonic plate rock and roll

One Newsgroup note poster proposed that the small but constant yearly increases in the distance between the Earth and the moon are adding energy to the Earth’s internal heat system and tectonic plate movement driving system. He proposed that this energy input was something like 26,000 megatons equivalent of TNT per year or about 70 megatons per day. If I remember correctly, the most powerful hydrogen weapon detonated to date was about 50 megatons. That is also about the amount of energy which I have heard can be released during a powerful earthquake.

My response:

Thanks for the interesting and informative note. That is the first time that I myself have seen a theory which proposes that yearly distance changes between the moon and the Earth might be pouring energy into the Earth’s internal heat and tectonic plate movement systems. I have seen theories which describe the effects of the moon gravity drag on the Earth’s oceans (actually, vice versa) and how those effects are constantly increasing the rotation speed of the moon around the Earth and slowly causing it to move farther from the Earth.

In my response note to ……… which I posted before I saw your note I discussed the following earthquake triggering time equation:

T = aA + bB + cC + dD + eE + …

T would be the time when the earthquake occurs. A, B, C, … would be forces or phenomena which cause strain to gradually build in fault zones or which can abruptly trigger an earthquake (such as a shockwave from another earthquake). And a, b, c, … would show the importance each of those forces etc. for individual earthquakes.

I recall when the tectonic plate existence theory (A in that equation) was first made public. And I believe that one can easily see that such a theory would require an exceptional scientific background for a person to formulate it and then provide convincing evidence to support it. But determining what some of those other terms in that equation are appears to me to be so easy that a high school student finishing third in his or her science fair could probably determine what one or two of them are. And it is a mystery to me why members of the international scientific community are finding that to be so difficult.

The following is a proposed equation term which would be among the more complex ones:

Most people have probably seen examples of how when a tuning fork is stuck it begins to vibrate. And if another tuning fork which has the same resonant frequency is place near it then it will also begin to vibrate.

My data suggest to me that when the sun and the moon are in certain positions in the sky relative to one another and probably to a lesser extent to a given earthquake fault zone, as the Earth rotates each day the alternating pull and then release on the Earth’s crust due to the sun and moon gravities may be causing some smaller fault zones such as the Juan de Fuca plate off the U.S. Northwest coast to rock, oscillate, or slosh back and forth to a certain extent in harmony with those alternating gravitational pull strengths. As a result, fault zones along the edges of some smaller tectonic plates can be temporarily subject to rapid, repetitive bending which can weaken them and help accelerate earthquake occurrence times in them.

The following older report goes into more detail on this. Parts of that report probably need an update.

Forecasting Earthquakes by Pattern Recognition
http://home.netcom.com/~edgrsprj/125.html

Finally, a comment (for this bulletin board) on my writing style.

It has evolved from years of experience with posting notes to Newsgroups etc. What I discovered is that if you use a more compact format which scientists might prefer then you are forced to answer a million questions regarding what you meant by this or that. And you quickly learn that it requires much more time to answer all of those questions than it takes to use this longer and more easily understood conversational format in the first place.