When Lowell Whiteside was doing his study on solar flares and earthquakes, he had made a reference to a study on how electricity reduces frictional coefficients. Like you I don't have a reference to that study but I would sure like to find out what the details of that study were.

Since a USGS seismologist went ahead and continued studying this phenomena I'm thinking that the reduction in frictional coefficients must have been significant enough.

We just had a solar flare that was the largest in the last 12 years. Although it wasn't directed towards the earth, it'll be interesting to see what transpires in the next week or so down in Baja, California and/or in Africa (don't remember the location there).

Dennis