February 26, 2002 - There has been perhaps a week or longer lull in the type of earthquake warning signal activity which I myself monitor. Such lulls appear to occur a number of times every year. And I am presently watching to see if they tend to end with strong earthquake activity.

A few clear signals were detected on February 22, 2002. They were not anything that I was especially concerned about. And a brief check suggested that they might be pointing to approaching seismic activity in western Pacific Ocean or central Asia areas.

Theories For Why Those Warning Signal Activity Lulls Occur

*** Tectonic plate movement causes strain energy to collect in fault zones. When one is getting close to fracturing, forces directly and/or indirectly linked with the gravitational pulls of the sun and the moon can temporarily or permanently add some additional strain to it and bring it closer to the fracturing point. Or that added strain may actually trigger an earthquake. If there is still not enough strain present for that then other forces or phenomena such as geomagnetic storms and hurricane related air drag on continents can temporarily or permanently add enough additional strain to the fault zone to trigger an earthquake.

*** Those same processes can also cause certain types of electromagnetic energy field fluctuation related warning signals to be generated.

*** When there is a temporary lull in warning signal activity it suggests that this triggering activity cycle may have come to a halt for one or more reasons. And the following are some theories for possible reasons:

--- There is a temporary lull in strong geomagnetic storm and hurricane activity etc.

--- Geomagnetic storm, hurricane, and sun and moon gravity related triggering processes tend to focus on certain locations at specific points in time. And they are not focusing on areas where a fault zone is getting ready to fracture.

--- Sun and moon gravity related triggering processes operate on a number of time window cycles including one which lasts about a month. And the triggering forces are at a low point in one or more of those cycles.

--- In one way or another, an important fault zone gets temporarily “jammed.” Perhaps an earthquake which should be occurring in it is delayed for some reason. And that interrupts certain warning signal generation and perhaps even global earthquake triggering processes.

*** During the time that this earthquake triggering cycle is inactive, tectonic plate moment etc. continues to add strain to fault zones pushing them closer to fracturing. And when the triggering cycle resumes there will be more strain energy available for release during an earthquake. Additionally, the fracture area may include parts of the fault zone system where aftershocks would normally have occurred. And instead of occurring later in time the “aftershocks” release their energy at about the same time as the initial earthquake. The net effect is that when some earthquakes occur after those triggering activity lulls they may be more powerful than they might otherwise have been.

Once again, those are simply a number of earthquake triggering and warning signal generation related theories which I and probably at least a few other researchers are evaluating at the present time. They are not being presented here as established fact.