Making Progress In Science + Earthquake Triggering Processes
Posted by EQF – June 6, 2011

MAKING PROGRESS IN SCIENCE

There are innumerable problems that presently threaten the health and lives of people around the world. I myself have spent considerable amounts of time on efforts aimed at solving some of those problems. And I presently have a list of about two dozen projects like that which are in various states of development. Earthquake forecasting is just one of them.

Among the most important are ones that are associated with efforts to get governments and private groups to develop environmentally safe, affordable sources of energy for a world that is starving for energy.

It is especially difficult to make any progress with the science of earthquake forecasting for the following reasons and others.

One of the best ways to get things done is to join forces with people who are attempting to move in the same direction. So, to get new sources of energy developed you can talk and work with any of a sizeable number of groups out there on the Internet that are working on that.

With earthquake forecasting there are virtually no groups that I am aware of that are trying to do that which are also willing to communicate with other researchers. Some of the groups doing the most advanced work are attempting to generate profits from their efforts. And so they don’t want to share data or communicate in any manner with other researchers. That in my opinion is unwise of them as this science is so complex that they usually eventually discover that they are making little or no progress. However, it is virtually impossible to convince them of that. They have to discover it on their own with the result that they simply stop doing any research and leave the field.

The EarthWaves bulletin board is one of the relatively few resources that we have where people can compare notes on this subject without too much distraction.

The people connected with the International Society for Earthquake Precursors (ISEP) are another such group. But as I explained, they don’t appear to me to have too much experience in the way of Internet Web site development. So, I am planning to see if they would like to collaborate on an effort where I could assist them with that.

If they are interested in that then the following is one of the projects that we might work on.

EARTHQUAKE TRIGGERING PROCESSES

My data clearly indicate to me that a good percentage of our more powerful earthquakes, say above 5 magnitude, are often being caused to occur at specific times by forces related to the gravitational pulls of the sun and the moon.

What is taking place is fairly complex. And there can be a range of those triggering forces that act on specific fault zones at different times. So it can be a little difficult to tell exactly what group of forces will trigger a specific earthquake. And it is necessary to use probability equations to work with a distribution of force groups.

This particular goal for the ISEP if they are interested would involve developing a highly sophisticated and hopefully accurate version of the following equation:

T = aA + bB + cC + dD + …

T = The earthquake triggering time such as a specific date and time.

A, B, C, D … = Various sources of stress or strain energy that collects in a fault zone.

a, b, c, d … = The impact of a specific force on a given fault zone at a specific time.

A = It would of course refer to a widely recognized sources of strain energy in fault zones, specifically, the movement of tectonic plates relative to one another for one example.

Another version of A such as A(2) might be fault zone strain related to pressure on the fault zone generated by the water collected behind a newly built dam or pore pressure in the fault zone rock layers that has increased because of that newly created water reservoir.

And yet another version of A such as A(3) might be fault zone strain related to oil or gas well drilling or the draining of water from underground aquifers that are being emptied by cities and farms.

B = It might refer to the gravitational pull of the moon. Though not that strong by itself, it can have a dramatic impact on earthquake triggering because the Earth rotates on its North – South Pole axis every 24 hours.

C = It might refer to that same type of force associated with the sun gravity.

Then there are more indirect types of forces such as D, E, F, … that result from the existence of the sun and moon gravity forces such as ocean tide related horizontal and vertical pressures on the fault zone. And there is strong solar storm related heating of the fault zone rock layers, and on and on.

My own earthquake forecasting program relies on an earthquake triggering model that even at an early stage is I suspect one or more decades more advanced than anything researchers at the USGS are aware of. And that is their choice. My theories have been discussed in detail at my Web sites for years and were discussed in late 2003 at a disaster mitigation conference in the People’s Republic of China.

With discussions that I have had with other earthquake triggering researchers they have stated that my theory model is too advanced for them to work with. They don’t have the computer resources or equations etc. needed to do that type of advanced work. In fact, this type of work really needs to be done on a supercomputer. One of the main limitations that I myself have to work with is limited amounts of number crunching ability.

However, if the ISEP researchers become interested in this type of effort then that should speed the work. They should be able to get more manpower and perhaps even more computer power involved. It might be that this type of work could be done through the use of "Internet Cloud Computing."

These are personal opinions.