I just want to point out that my response to Jane's post wasn't intended to be dismissive of Jane's contribution; I found the article interesting, and it has stimulated some interesting discussion. Nor was it intended to diss the study itself. I am reasonably sure that the authors are onto something.

My purpose was simply to point out that the article, alone, carefully read, did not provide support for its headline. And, in doing that, I don't even take issue with the journalism involved. Articles in the popular press like this one are necessarily abbreviated. I DO think, though, that an extra sentence or two could have been inserted to support the assertion that a significant number of the quakes studied appeared to trigger quakes beyond the several-hundred kilometer range already accepted.

Roger and John are doing a nice job of parsing the study, and, after I've completed the statistics class I'm taking this summer, I may even be able to contribute something to such discussions. Even with my current limited knowledge of statistics, I am concerned with how the very limited number of quakes chosen for the study (15) were chosen.

Mike Williams