I have been using my data evaluation computer program to check my warning signal data collected before the deadly earthquakes in Bam, Iran and California last December. And my conclusion is that those data clearly indicated that earthquakes could be about to occur in both of those areas, especially California.

That program produces data which is quite different from what people are used to seeing with an earthquake forecasting program. And that is probably one of main sources of confusion.

Usually a forecasting program points to a specific location for a specific time. I can generate forecasts like that myself when necessary. But that requires so much time and effort that I now rarely attempt to do that. Instead my present program can be described as doing the following. And this is a highly simplified picture which is not exactly technically correct. But it is the closest I can come in a short report like this. These are personal opinions.

My program contains routines which can generate information regarding the status of earthquake triggering conditions in fault zones around the world at any given time. And the numbers that it generates indicate what those conditions are at specific times. It there is a sudden increase in the numbers for a given fault zone it means that it could be becoming seismically active. And earthquake forecasters in that location should check to see if there are any signs of an approaching earthquake in that area.

I have looked at the data for just a relatively few earthquakes now. But I believe that it did an excellent job of detecting the approach of a number of California earthquakes, the one in Bam, Iran last December, the recent powerful one in Fiji, and the deadly one which just occurred in China (about 4 fatalities and at least 500 injured).

What I have done in the past few months is contact governments around the world and recommend that they check my Data.html Web page on a regular basis to see what earthquake triggering conditions might be like in their country. And there are about 50 to 100 people visiting the site each day now. I don’t know who they are. But I am assuming that some of them are connected with governments in other countries.

As I have stated repeatedly in the past, the notes that I am posting here are to a large extent progress reports related to this effort. I can answer an occasional technical question. But I really don’t have time to get into arguments or lengthy conversations with people. This is not a funded effort. It is not even my regular area of science. And there is a considerable amount of important information regarding this program that I still need to circulate to governments and to disaster response groups around the world.