reply to Amit
Posted by Island Chris on December 10, 2012 at 14:07:48:

Amit, you certainly don't offend me and I doubt you offend others.

I am interested in what triggers quakes among many other things, and any highly significant predictions, even if they do not give location, would be interesting because it would say something about what triggers earthquakes. If you had some highly significant track record, then one might be wondering about whether there is anything to "Ear tone, 103 degrees,oil/gas drilling, EM signal " or whatever you use.

But, your predictions should be easy to evaluate, Roger has evaluated them, and he says that you do not do better than chance. You could evaluate your own predictions. How many M7s occur each year, so what is probability there will be one on a given day, so how many hits and misses you should get by chance, and how many hits and misses you actually get. Or something like that.

I disagree with the thoughts behind: "A major quake may occur in Himalayas either tomorrow or 100 years after,is not useful"

If a study of strain accumulation using GPS and fault studies including paleoseismology say that a particular fault near a city has regular major quakes and it is accumulating strain, then the 30 year probabilities of some ground motion exceedance is very useful for economic decisions on building codes, retrofitting, etc. This is what has been saving lives in those countries that take action.

For the Japanese quake and nuclear disaster, the earthquake in 869 was neglected or the size of its tsunami known too late (a few years ago? Longer?) to allow the nuclear plant to be properly located or protected.

Chris