Hi All,

Don and I enjoyed the opening of the AGU today and attended the afternoon poster session to get our feet wet. I'm sorry to say we missed Chris' poster this morning as I had to see my doctor about my back pain.

I was most interested in viewing a poster being presented by Stefan Weimer about b-value. His poster demonstrated b-value calculations for earthquakes occurring in California such as Landers, Big Bear, Hector Mines and Loma Prieta. I had one simple question to ask in this regard and I wanted to know if b-value being higher than normal or lower than normal was sufficient to use in earthquake prediction. The answer was a simple no. The use of b-value has no time dependant element in which one could apply the results of the hypothesis and therefore is basically useless.

Two years ago at AGU Don and I came across a poster in which the gentlemen who had prepared their poster suggested that the IASPEI remove b-value from their list of precursors to earthquakes. Dino Guiardini was one, but I can't recall the other.

I also inquired as to whether or not he had any knowledge of anyone past or present doing any research as to whether fewer earthquakes occur on the weekends versus weekdays and he did not, but said he was curious about the results we might acquire in our study.

This year the AGU is being held in a new building called Moscone Center West and fortunately it is right next door to the parking garage and so much smaller in floor space. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to walk all over the place for both Don and I with our back problems.

Tomorrow is a day we will start out bright and early because oral presentations are set for Keilis-Borok, John Vidale and Susan Hough and we wouldn't miss them for the world. It starts at 8AM, so we will have to get out of here no later than 6AM.

As usual, the weather in San Francisco was really nice today. While Santa Rosa was socked in with a foggy, gray day, the city shone like a diamond. Sunny and truly beautiful.

Petra & Don