Glen,

Earthquake prediction is fraught with problems and most of them have little if anything to do with the "science of." This is where the rubber meets the road as far as who approves of what and whom.

Six years ago you had to be really careful if you approached scientist and said the EQP words out loud where anyone was present besides the person you were speaking to. I remember after a couple of times when scientists would not give me some answers, it wasn't because they didn't want to, they just didn't want to be overheard discussing it. They were fearful if others thought they were involved in prediction that they might be ostracized. It was a very seriously sensitive issue.

I don't really understand the progression of what happened between ‘99 and ‘05. But it was as if the door were flung open; yet only acceptable in a narrow margin. Today pretty much what flies professionally are statistical models. It's a high stakes math game, but truly few are talking about anything short term. 10 year periods seem to be the prevailing time periods. The group in Oregon has a pretty good record, but they only tell outsiders about it after an earthquake arrives. They claimed a hit on Parkfield and I'm sure they had it, but it isn't prediction in the sense that we would like to see it.

Keilis-Borok has given a lot of time with his group trying to make some inroads and in the larger picture he really isn't doing that bad. He has this horrible luck that no matter what area he picks, the quakes just happen right outside of his area. So it isn't like they don't happen at all and that has to be so disappointing. He is a prince of a man. He's warm and friendly and very approachable.

Ragnar Steffanson of Iceland has had some positive moments and received five years of funding in 2003 for his prediction research. But even he who has a solid scientific background gets the backlash because he lives in a place which has little ground cover. Supposedly, if you can see the ground clearly it makes predicting earthquakes easier.

One thing I really enjoy is that everyone shares everything with me. You never see half of what is going round on the Internet, it's still very much behind the scenes and it should stay that way. Honestly, posting on news groups makes you an instant target for degradation.

Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has all of the facts. Too often you see people picked apart without the judges seeing the whole of it or knowing whether or not the person is of good moral character. Being to quick to judge is unfair, but it is prevalent, so it drives many of the good candidates to sequester themselves. To much negativity drives the best of the best away. And who could blame them?

However, the good news is that there are people out there who want to see what is the best of what's available. Tom Jordan of SCEC is one of them. He's wide open to having a look see for anyone who is interested. That sounds pretty fair to me. He just wants you to tell him your parameters for acceptability and if you fail, it's only because you ruled yourself out.

And can one write predictions so they will look like the icing on the cake and pass all of the tests? I'm positive one can do such a thing. But usefulness then becomes the issue, not whether it can be accomplished.

I am absolutely positive that California will again have a devastating earthquake and it will be far worse than Northridge or Loma Prieta. Even if it were predicted the numbers who cannot leave would be to great. There are some things you cannot change or alter and this event will be one of those. Earthquake safety education would help, but it's going to be one of those "to little to late" events. I've already seen it and so have many others, but science is unprepared for this. They aren't there yet. So we have to wait, be patient and let them do their jobs. They will in time figure it all out. Of that, I have total confidence. This they can do.

Petra