BODY OF MESSAGE: Glen and all, come on, is the history of Parkfield so obscure?

I'll relay this again, because I think it is historically important. In 1972 then Senator Harrison .S.h.m.i.t.t. (dots are to escape the censor) (S.c.h.m.i.t.t. was a geologist, became a geophysist, an astronaut on the last manned mission to the Moon and later a Senator) suggested to Dallas Peck, the director of NASA that the next great leap should come in predicting earthquakes. Parkfield was selected because of its so called repeating earthquake pattern. (I disagree with that because 11 years one time to 38 years the next time is not an interval which is frequent enough to be useful and not to mention in a place which never had more than 38 residents during the entire experiment.)

At SAFOD they may be watching over the SAF, but I seriously doubt there is a prediction in the future for the residents. The reason for this is because if they saw something they would want to see how it played out before they alerted the public (17 residents). You cannot know what size of an earthquake may arrive based on instrumentation unless you've seen it at least once. Prior to the 6.0 quake a Level A alert only had a 37% chance of occurring. Can you imagine a prediction for the Hayward Fault with only a 37% chance? That's what sets Parkfield apart from everywhere else. If only 17 people criticize you, you can handle that, but a million, not so easily.

And chances are fewer than 5 people on this forum will write to any of the legislative body in the next year. I will as I have several matters to address and not all on the topic of geophysics. But timing is everything and you should only write when you know there is time for a bill to be developed. If it will take more than a year, then write this year so it can appear next year, but if could go this year, write early enough so it can hit the floor before summer break.

Petra