Chris,

I am going. While his lecture may be about his upcoming ULF research endeavor, the first thing one should look at is his background in geophysics and earthquake prediction along the historical record of the instrument proposed.

Looking at his web site the first thing that caught my eye was the absence of listing the papers he has written. We all know the most successful scientists are yards long on paper, so what happened? We know he got his Macelwane Award which means he was no slouch in the mentals back in 1983, but that's a long time ago. Where was he between 1972 and 2000? And we have to ask what is his connection/relationship between an oil refining funding organization and his current project? There are to many unanswered questions about his background to make an educated decision about whether he is a mover and shaker in prediction circles. We all should know that being the head of something doesn't necessarily make you the most qualified person in the hands on sense of a project.

So leaving "what has Jordan been doing" question, then we have to examine at the historical record of ULF monitoring in regard to earthquake prediction. VAN started with it in the 1960's and they were hammered and still are under professional scrutiny. In the 1980's the Japanese and later the Chinese took an interest in ULF, but so far there are no "great success" stories out there. We know Antony Fraser Smith had a record for Loma Prieta as well. But what about Parkfield? The standing report is that there were "no instruments" in Parkfield that showed any changes, or recorded anything that led them to believe the 6.0 was going to arrive. Is that true? What happened with their ULF equipment? What's happening now in regard to Cholame? And if those bring negative responses, then we have to ask why anyone would believe that ULF monitoring should bring success in the future, when it has no historical success record in the past?

The most successful public earthquake prediction with evacuation was the Feb 4, 1975 Haiching, China earthquake which was based upon earthquake precursors, including changes in land elevation, groundwater level, swarms of small quakes, snakes coming out of the ground in winter, jittery horses, dogs and chickens. So if one were to use only ULF monitoring for earthquake prediction we have to ask the most important question: Is that enough to issue a public prediction? If not, what else do you need? Where will it come from? Would the Earthquake Data Repository be of any benefit?

In conclusion, from surface information, if someone asked me if Tom Jordan and ULF should be funded, I would say no. Jordan has not been high on the public list of those having an interest in prediction during the past six years and ULF does not possess a good track record. Now bring something to the table that supports him and his proposed project.

Petra