Earthquake Note To Dr. Richard Boylan – Posted by EQF on September 5, 2011

This is an EarthWaves board posting of most of the content of an E-mail note that was just sent to Dr. Richard Boylan.

Hi Dr. Boylan,

This note has already been posted to the EarthWaves earthquake research bulletin board under the pen name EQF. I would appreciate it if you did not post copies to any other public forums.

http://www.earthwaves.org/wwwboard/wwwboard.html

If I located the right person, a quick Internet check indicates to me that you do have a doctorate degree. My own highest degree is an M.S. in one of the physical sciences.

Your Web site appears to me to be proposing that there could be some strong seismic activity along the U.S. East Coast between September 4 and September 10, 2011.

http://www.drboylan.com/appalachianquakes.html

Earthquake forecasting data that I myself circulate in pubic are usually reported on the following Web page:

http://www.freewebs.com/eq-forecasting/Data.html

My forecasting program is based on the detection of what are believed to be earthquake fault zone activity related electromagnetic energy field pulses. It presently appears that those signals can often be detected at any location on the planet for especially powerful earthquakes that will occur anywhere else on the planet.

In contrast to your Web site forecast, none of my own recent data indicate to me there is any extremely high magnitude seismic activity headed for the U.S. East Coast (or anywhere else) during the next week. I should also state that that situation can and has changed in the past in just a day. However, at the moment it looks unlikely that there will be a major change like that.

There are two recommendations that I generally make to people who are attempting to forecast earthquakes:

First, since there does not appear to me to be much international support for people working in this area of science, individual forecasters need to keep track of the success and failure rates for their own forecasts. Then they need to adjust the confidence level that they have in their forecasts based on those successes and failures.

Second, because it is so easy for “false positive” earthquake warning signals to be generated and mistakenly interpreted, it is important that forecasters ask other forecasters around the world to provide some confirmation information when they believe that an earthquake might be about to occur somewhere.

When I myself circulate an Earthquake Warning or Advisory I generally avoid stating that an earthquake is definitely going to occur at some location at a specific time. Instead I ask other forecasters who have access to precursor data for where I believe the earthquake might occur to check their local data to see if there is anything suspicious looking. If I am able to detect signals for an earthquake that is about to occur as far away as the other side of the planet then there should also be strong and easily observed precursor signals in the area where the earthquake is actually going to occur.

That cautious approach can help avoid “false alarm” type events that can cause the general public to get upset.