Hello Don,

Basically, I was trying to point out that people
make claims about being able to predict earthquakes.
In an effort to ward off that claim, the scientific
community comes up with the idea of beating random
chance. When that didn't work they went onto
something else. Its a process that I currently
see no end to.

:There seems to be a reluctance to go all the way
:with earthquake forecasting. I find it rather
:strange that they have made much progress in the
:ability to forecast hurricanes, tornados, extreme
:storms etc. I can theorize why they may not want
:to forecast earthquakes, but even that doesn’t
:make much sense.

I would think that a greater effort is being made
with storms because the number of occurrences of
damaging storms is much greater then the number
of damaging earthquakes.

:In the past I have accurately forecasted 7 quakes
:for the Hollister/SJB area and one for Parkfield
:by using the data. I asked the question about how
:many site like those at SJB would they need to
:accurately cover the faults. I was told about
:2000 such sites would be needed, but the cost
:would most likely bankrupt California so it’s not
:likely that this would ever be done especially
:when there is no guarantee that they will be able
:to forecast a major quake.

Sure, if everything was done all at one time,
California may go bankrupt. Seems that a little
here and a little there from time to time wouldn't
be that big a deal. After a few years of doing
this it would have all been done.

Also, with the no guarantee that they'll be able
to forecast quakes, they would/should be able to
learn more. They did learn about slow quakes
which they wouldn't have known about without the
instruments that are already in place.

:I think this may be where the problem lies. They
:can’t give a guarantee that it will work. It’s
:not the same as forecasting a hurricane, or a
:tornado. People can see those coming. They can’t
:see the earthquake coming. At least not in the
:physical sense. A major earthquake is one of the
:most terrifying natural phenomena that a person
:can experience. Once the quake starts there is
:nothing anyone can do except ride it out. The
:other thing that may be standing in the way of
:earthquake forecasting is the cost of being
:wrong. I don’t think people would take being
:wrong to many times.

Past hurricane forecasts have been wrong in the
past with many a person extremely unhappy about
it. And there has been a lot of lost business
because of it. They're experienced with this
kind of thing.

:Then again if you were right how would this
:affect the insurance companies?

Shouldn't have any more affect then do
tornadoes, hurricanes, or floods.

:How would this
:affect companies that may want to build in a
:certain area? Would there be reluctance on their
:part to build in some areas knowing full well
:that a major quake could wipe them out in 30
:seconds. Of course this situation exists now.
:There is the knowledge that on any given day a
:major quake could wipe them out. What they don’t
:know is when. They much rather deal with the
:unknown.

The same could be said for tornadoes. It is
known that they'll occur, but not when and
where.

Dennis