Hi All. After a year of Petra trying to explain to me the sound she hears before a earthquake while at the same time resisting the urge to strangle me for the comments I make I finely understand what it is that she hears.

It’s not just a sound, but a specific sound or tone that she hears. This sound she hears, the type of sound, the volume of it, the duration of it, and which ear she hears it in tells her the fault, approximate magnitude, approximate distance from where she is at and the direction from where she’s at. The main problem she has is that she has not heard some specific sounds often enough too able to pin point the magnitude and location. Its not like we have a 5.0Ml plus quake once of month in the area. She heard the Hector Mine quake, but never having heard that sound before was unable to determine just what it meant. For myself I saw the swarm of quakes about 4 hours before the main event. I knew this was a classic sign of a large event, but never though it would be as large as it was. As a matter of fact I really wasn’t sure there would be a larger quake and that this would be the location only that this was most likely location.

When Pat called me and told me what she heard and where she felt the quake would center at I stepped up my monitoring of the data for Parkfield and SJB. Yesterday morning (Sunday 09/24/00) I noted an unusual acceleration in creep for the Parkfield area that can not be accounted for. It was also noted that there was a slight build up of tensor strain at 3 different data sites. Never having seen this combination before I’m not sure as to its meaning but do feel there are two locations for a moderate to large (5.5Md to 6.5Md) quake to occur. The first being just south of Parkfield and the other between Parkfield and SJB, but closer to Parkfield as there has been no change in the data at SJB. There is one little problem though. The data at SJB is not complete. The Echo Valley dilational stress has been down for about 3 months now and it is with this data that I have been able to successfully forecast 7 quakes that have been associated with the San Andreas Fault. Mal at USGS told me last Friday that as all of the maintenance people are back from Hawaii (they were installing new equipment) they will repair the data at SJB. He didn’t say when though.

I’m sure that if I have made any errors in describing what Pat hears and how she uses what she hears she will correct me. Also I won’t be making anymore comments about the noises she hears as I have much better understanding plus the fact that I’m getting sore from the beatings about the head and shoulders I get from the comments I make. Take Care…Don in creepy town.