Thanks Roger,

The good news is that this earthquake did not happen where I predicted it would. I am greatly relieved. However, even though this is a definite miss insofar as the prediction goes, I do feel there was an earthquake which matched the ear tone.

Ear tone counting deteriorates after about 12 to 15 seconds, so to count 1001, 1002 and so forth, we as humans don't do well. I tried to compensate for that by using the 150 mile radius, however it wasn't enough. The difference between that radius and the quake was 203 miles to Revilla Gigedo and in total 353 miles off of the expected epicenter. The magnitude at 5.4 was a very close to the estimated low side of 5.5, so that fits as well.

The person who had this report has now reported another 30 second right ear tone, but not as loud as the last one, so it will be interesting to see if that might be an aftershock of the 5.4 in Revilla Gigedo and what the magnitude might be.

All in all, we have to learn how to use the information we receive and convert that to a prediction. Unfortunately as we are humans, we are more subject to error than an instrument.

I think I handled reporting this prediction entirely wrong and I would not chose to do it again the same way, however, I will not ever upset the residents of Mexico with a prediction their area as they are terribly frightened of earthquakes and unless this program can be proven to work, there is no good or valid reason to do so. After all, it is an experiment.

So, let's put it to bed, I'll remember the good and bad aspects and do better the next time....Petra

Distance Calculation Results

Distance between 24.58N 109.20W and 19.47N 108.95W is
353.8173 statute miles

This calculation assumes the earth is a perfect sphere
with a radius of 3963.1 statute miles

MAG UTC DATE-TIME
y/m/d h:m:s LAT
deg LON
deg DEPTH
km Region
MAP 5.4 2006/03/14 23:31:43 19.477 -108.959 10.0 REVILLA GIGEDO ISLANDS REGION

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/255_20_eqs.php