Sure, Lowell has courage to do what he does, and conviction that he is correct. And, for me, he has a fair amount of credibility because his Comps paper in 1990 was on distant triggering by P and S waves, which would have been not believed by most seismologists at the time-until Landers EQ occurred in 1992. But, I don't think everything he has ever said is correct. His thesis shows statistical correlations between EQs and triggering events, etc. There are some simple graphs, but a lot of it/most of it is statistical correlations. I suppose to comment on this I really need to spend several days re-reading this carefully-I can't do this any time soon. But, even if it can be shown that a correlation is significant-that it is not by chance, it is hard for someone not used to statistics (me, for example) to tell if it is a very weak effect or strong effect. Another problem is that there are so many effects and correlations in Lowell's work that if you, for example, go through and accept the first 99 correlations, then find the 100th non-credible, a red flag is raised and you start doubting the first 99. I once accepted a lot (not all) of Lowell's ideas, but that acceptance has been eroded over the last 3 years, when, for example, there is an Xclass flare or strong geomagnetic storm and I don't see anything unusual happening on the California map, or the global NEIC/USGS page, or Roger plots the global seismicity on the FFA maps for 10 days before and 10 days after a M>7 quake and there is not a strong correlation (although there are quakes that fall on the rings). I think it would be more interesting on this page if, for example, Don looked into some of these relationships instead of just stating they are true because Lowell says they are. Make some simple graphs-for example, x class flares and California quakes>M2. Or, can limit it to Geysers, Long Valley, Brawley seismic zone. Or, do something like it for global quakes.....There are some interesting things going on that are not easily explained-like pairs of EQs a few hours apart in the same part of the world but too far apart for static stress triggers, or 3 M6s in a half day..This is not my field, really-but it is John Vidale's. John, if you read this, I suggest you get Lowell's thesis from U.M.I; or, if you want the figures to be clearer, get the original on interlibrary loan. It is from the University of Colorado, 1999, and called Short Term Variations in Seismic Hazard. Spend some time with this, and read it with an open mind. ..Chris