How The Forecast Data Charts Work June 20, 2010
Posted by EQF on June 20, 2010 at 05:49:28:

Hi Penny,

If people want to look at the charts on my Data.html Web page and try to tell where earthquakes are likely to occur around the world then that is fine. However, as explained here, one of their main purposes is quite a bit more specific than that. And I am guessing that this could be important to you. I myself don’t live near any fault zones. However, it sounds like you do.

Let’s say that you lived along the 115 W longitude line near the California – Mexico boarder. The chances are fairly good that you would want to know if any earthquakes were about to occur in that area. So, you could check my Data.html Web page charts several times a week. That takes less than a minute. And you would watch for strong line peaks around 115 W on the chart. Line peaks at 145 E would be unimportant to you.

The chart below is what you might have seen on April 4, 2010, a short time before the following 7.2 magnitude earthquake occurred. A yellow longitude line has been added to that chart to make the important longitude easier to see.

2010/04/04 22:40:41 32.12N 115.30W 10 7.2 Baja Calironia, Mexico
NEIS Data


http://www.Freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/images/20100404C1.png

As you can see, there are no strong line peaks at 115 W on the most recent Time Window lines on that chart. So, if your life depended upon your knowing that an earthquake were about to occur there then you would have been out of luck.

For some reason, high magnitude earthquakes such as that one will sometimes appear on my charts. But often they won’t. That extremely powerful one in Chile did not show up very well. There might be some type of EM Signal shutdown mechanism that goes into affect a few weeks or months before these really powerful earthquakes occur. I am still trying to determine what is happening with them. They do appear at times if the data are processed using a different set of probability equations.

If you wanted to know if and when a strong aftershock might occur for that earthquake then you could continue watching the charts. And shortly before the following strong earthquake you would might have seen the chart below.

2010/06/15 04:26:58 32.69N 115.92W 7 5.7 Southern California


http://www.Freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/images/20100615C1.png

Now if you looked at 115 W on the chart you would have seen strong line peaks at that location on recent Time Window lines. They were even clearer on the June 13 Chart. And there were no strong line peaks at 115 W on earlier Time Window lines meaning that this was new EM Signal activity.

So, within a few seconds you could tell that some significant earthquake activity could be headed for 115 W. And it would be reasonable to expect that it might be aftershock activity for the April 4 earthquake.

With that information you could then start checking other locations on the Internet to see if anyone else were expecting any seismic activity in that area. And you could have posted a note to this bulletin board asking about that. Perhaps someone would have said something. Or I myself could have run some additional checks for that location. I don’t have time to watch for everyone’s earthquakes so don’t pay too much attention to individual chart line peaks unless someone asks.

My forecasting program can and does generate forecast data that are far more complex and accurate than that. But, at about the simplest level, those charts are largely intended to let people know when they should be checking for significant seismic activity in the area where they live. And if you lived on the 115 W longitude line near the California - Mexico border then that second chart would have let you know that a powerful aftershock could be about to occur.

The charts work for some earthquakes and not for others. Efforts are underway to improve their success rates. But as I have said before, these chart data are fairly new even to me. And I am learning how to interpret and improve them at the same time they are being generated and will probably be doing that for some time to come.

Follow Ups:
     ● Better links for those charts - EQF  05:57:32 - 6/20/2010  (77274)  (1)
        ● Another try with the links - EQF  06:03:49 - 6/20/2010  (77275)  (0)