It is much easier to take an objective viewpoint about almost any topic or issue provided you are not directly involved in the subject matter. When my early research began I was primarily interesting in understanding why public earthquake prediction did not exist. I found, for the most part, this aspect of geo-scientific interest was rather the ugly stepchild. It has born little fruit, is frequently unsuccessful and is cost prohibitive. Yet, I wanted to understand in the long term, the path of where geo-science will go. Why are they mapping faults,instrumenting them at a tremendous budget and what will they do with the findings of those endeavors?

While fault identification is important in the sense of what kind of future structures may be built there, they also determine the potential of future fault behavior. The past does reflect possible future earthquake activity. If a fault has had a 8.0 magnitude quake between one hundred to two hundred years, the chances of this occurring again in the same time period are somewhat likely. This information in part is what is used to determine long term probabilities which are released to the public, with earthquake preparedness in mind.

However, I found it most interesting that those who have worked with a great interest in earthquake prediction are often taken in a bad light, when in fact the entirety of geo-scientific work is taking all of them down the path toward more finite predictive abilities. The only problem with this scenario is what they will do with the information when they finally achieve the ability to predict earthquakes?

Their greatest fear is not what will happen to the structures which may fall during an earthquake, but how we as individuals may react when a prediction is delivered. They don't feel we are ready. Are they correct in this assumption? Only we can answer the question. First, we must ask, do we want to know? If so, how long in advance would we like to be aware of a potential problem? Is three days long enough, or too long? Would twenty-four hours be sufficient, or if the information only became conclusive within ten minutes, would we still want to know?

This is a serious question, but one that should be thought about for some time. You have to ask yourself what you would do if the information was delivered to you via the media. If you had three days notice would you attempt to leave town, clogging the freeways and in the process possibly get into a car accident and becoming injured? Or would you continue your life in your normal routine, and prepare yourself and your residence for this possible event?

If you selected staying at home, you've made the correct choice for only one reason, because earthquake prediction will never be 100 % correct all of the time.

While I would like to extend my thanks to the thousands of geo-scientists who work diligently for a better future for all of us, I would like to extend special thanks to those few scientists who are willing to stand on their own and say they have an interest in solving a most intriguing problem.

I hope we meet somewhere in the middle in the future. We should be prepared for earthquakes whether they are predicted or not, but when our geo-scientists have honed their skills to a degree where we can receive live warnings, we should be ready to receive them.

This research project has reached a conclusion. There is nothing more I can add to it, or use it in a positive way to promote the safety of millions of people. I will for all time, be disappointed that a volunteer educational effort could never be achieved between scientists and the general public. It is not in their nature in general to spend time with us unless we wish to come to the Ivory Tower and ask the questions. There is so very much which could have been done, or could be done in the future, but I don't have the patience to wait for an event that may never arrive.

I believe The Seismic Safety Zone has about six more contract months to run and at the end of that time, I will close it once and for all. The great adventure is over and I think it has been for quite some time. I hope some people have learned a little bit about how much love it takes to want to keep someone you don't know alive and well and with a bright future ahead after such a dramatic event. The site was delivered with mostly love.

I would also like to say to all of you how much I have enjoyed your company over the years. We haven't always seen eye to eye, but that's okay too, because we would be nothing if we could not be ourselves.

I'm going away for a while. I'll miss all of you more than words can say, but to say I have loved all of you would be the best I could offer.

Petra - In search of the road home.