That new format Web page has just had another feature added.

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

Earthquakes are now being displayed on Chart B as dots that have different sizes and colors to show their magnitude and also whether or not a given earthquake produced fatalities (none recently as far as I am aware).

Chart B could not display them in that manner before. And if that sounds like a simple addition, the Etdprog forecasting program is so complex that it took a good part of a day just to add that one feature to it.

There are now enough data available through that Web page and support programs etc. to at times provide earthquake researchers and forecasters around the world with an advanced warning when a powerful earthquake is approaching and in some cases information regarding where it might be about to occur.

It takes some time to learn how to decipher those data. But, consider that roughly 20,000 people lost their lives in that devastating March, 2011 earthquake in Japan. Earthquakes don't occur near where I live. And I don't have time to watch for everyone's earthquakes. Wouldn't it make sense for people who do live near dangerous fault zones to learn how to interpret those types of data or at least have one scientist in their city learn how to interpret them? Compared with that loss of 20,000 lives, a little time spent learning how to interpret those and other types of forecast data would seem to me to be a real bargain if that resulted in just one life being saved.

These are personal opinions.

• Web page addition